Basic web page elements (Page Title, H1 Tag and meta description Tag) help search engines understand your intended meaning, linking keywords to content.
Every webpage you visit returns a status code, to give the browser additional information and instructions. Search bots see these codes, and some of them can impact SEO. Here are a few if the big ones.
10 reasons why your site's rankings wont be affected by penguin.
Did you know that...
- 79% search engine users say they always/frequently click on the natural search results (Organic)?
- 80% of search engines users say they occasionally/rarely/never click on the sponsored search results?
- 75% of search engine users never scroll past the first page of search results?
In too many cases, SEO consultants get lumped into a single group: “Those guys who do Google stuff to improve your website.” In fact, there’s a wide range of different SEO solutions out there, from one-man shops to large agencies, all of which have different strengths and weaknesses and employ different techniques to improve a company’s search placements and website results.
The obvious corollary to this idea is that different clients will be better served by different SEO agencies. Though it can be tempting to take on any customer who’s willing to wave a paid invoice in your face, it’s even more important to make sure that the customers you take on are a good fit for your skills and experiences. Moving forward with clients for whom your business isn’t suited is far more likely to result in bad reviews and a tarnished reputation than to bring about positive results!
As a result, you’ll want to take a look at the following list of questions that we at Single Grain use to qualify the customers we choose to work with before committing to any future SEO projects:
1. How is your website structured?
These days, website structures range from HTML pages to sites that use popular CMS platforms to custom coded, script-based systems. Given all this variety, it’s nearly impossible to attain expert-level proficiency in every web technology, meaning that clients making use of platforms that aren’t your strongest suit may not be the right fit for your agency. Determining this before drawing up a contract will save both you and your prospective clients plenty of time!
2. How would you describe your current marketing strategy?
Similarly, companies employ a vast array of marketing strategies, from solely SEO to PPC, content marketing, and social media outreach. If your client’s dead-set on using PPC, but you can’t tell your CPCs from your CPMs, do everyone a favor and pass on the opportunity. Poorly executed projects—no matter how good your intentions are—will only damage your company’s reputation.
3. What SEO have you done to date?
Sometimes, clients come to you after having invested years into “DIY” SEO or phony SEO consultants, leaving their sites a mess of abused tags, spam backlinks, and spun content. In some cases, these sites may be too far gone to recover with a short-term SEO campaign. If so, it’s your responsibility to either turn down the project or make your client aware of just exactly how much work will be required to clean up past messes.
4. Have you engaged in any link building activities?
Learning more about a prospect’s past link building is another great way to gauge how SEO savvy prospective clients are. For example, hearing a potential client say, “Yes, we’ve focused on building high value backlinks from experts in our industry,” is a much better sign that future campaigns will run smoothly than hearing, “Yeah, we paid some guy $10 to build a couple thousand of those.”
5. Are you targeting any particular keywords?
Understanding whether or not a client is targeting particular keywords gives you some insight into whether a prospect’s expectations are reasonable. Charging a customer your base rate to secure “a couple of first page rankings” won’t do you much good when you find out that the client wants to hit the first page of the “auto insurance” SERP!
6. Has your site ever been penalized?
Helping a site to recover from a past penalty can range from being difficult to downright impossible. And while I’m not saying that you should avoid a project simply because a penalty was issued in the past, go into these types of projects with your eyes wide open to the amount of extra work they’ll require.
7. What metrics are you tracking?
We ask this question to learn more about a company’s marketing objectives (though it also helps us to gauge the business’s level of marketing sophistication). Certain metrics naturally lend themselves to improvement via SEO, which means that a company’s answer to this question helps us to determine whether or not our skills are the right fit for the organization.
8. What is your current website ROI?
This question is always an interesting one to ask, as you’ll receive answers that range from, “What’s a website ROI?” to detailed spreadsheets outlining past results.
In this instance, we aren’t asking because we only want to work with companies that know or don’t know their site’s ROI. We’re asking because it lets us know whether the company has analytics and goals tracking installed, both of which have the potential to influence the ultimate scope of the project.
It also gives us some clues as to the mindset of the organization, as companies that currently measure ROI will need to see a more detailed accounting of our activities, compared to those for whom website tracking is a new concept.
9. What separates your business from your competitors?
Before signing on with any potential customers, it’s important for our company to learn about their industries and their place within it. While it’s obviously easier to work with a client who has a well-defined value proposition compared to others in the field, it can also be a fun challenge to help a business hone in on what sets their products or services apart from their competitors before beginning an SEO campaign based around these benefits.
10. Who is your target audience?
In addition to knowing how a prospective customer’s company is special, finding out more about their target audience helps us to get a baseline feel for the types of promotions that will serve their organization best.
As an example, if we hear that a company is primarily interested in reaching young people, we can automatically assume that social media marketing will be a part of our ultimate proposal. Knowing this helps us put together ballpark estimates on-the-fly, allowing us to provide prospect’s with more accurate cost estimates earlier in the buying cycle.
11. Are you using social media marketing in conjunction with your website?
Developing some measure of perceived authority and following on social media websites is becoming a more important SEO ranking factor by the day, so it’s important for our team to understand a prospective customer’s current social media presence. If we see an existing social media marketing campaign in place, we can often find ways to improve upon it to help our clients better engage with our customers. And if we don’t, we’re often able to bring about positive website results more quickly by integrating this strategy into a customer’s SEO plan.
12. What are you hoping to get out of this SEO project?
Lastly, it’s important for us to know right off the bat what our prospective customers expect to get out of their SEO campaigns. Too many “get rich quick” types have sold SEO as a way to fast Internet results, when the reality is that a well-executed campaign may take months to show progress. Explicitly hammering out what is—and what isn’t possible—when it comes to SEO helps to keep expectations reasonable and ensure that all parties are able to get something of value out of the project.
The obvious corollary to this idea is that different clients will be better served by different SEO agencies. Though it can be tempting to take on any customer who’s willing to wave a paid invoice in your face, it’s even more important to make sure that the customers you take on are a good fit for your skills and experiences. Moving forward with clients for whom your business isn’t suited is far more likely to result in bad reviews and a tarnished reputation than to bring about positive results!
As a result, you’ll want to take a look at the following list of questions that we at Single Grain use to qualify the customers we choose to work with before committing to any future SEO projects:
1. How is your website structured?
These days, website structures range from HTML pages to sites that use popular CMS platforms to custom coded, script-based systems. Given all this variety, it’s nearly impossible to attain expert-level proficiency in every web technology, meaning that clients making use of platforms that aren’t your strongest suit may not be the right fit for your agency. Determining this before drawing up a contract will save both you and your prospective clients plenty of time!
2. How would you describe your current marketing strategy?
Similarly, companies employ a vast array of marketing strategies, from solely SEO to PPC, content marketing, and social media outreach. If your client’s dead-set on using PPC, but you can’t tell your CPCs from your CPMs, do everyone a favor and pass on the opportunity. Poorly executed projects—no matter how good your intentions are—will only damage your company’s reputation.
3. What SEO have you done to date?
Sometimes, clients come to you after having invested years into “DIY” SEO or phony SEO consultants, leaving their sites a mess of abused tags, spam backlinks, and spun content. In some cases, these sites may be too far gone to recover with a short-term SEO campaign. If so, it’s your responsibility to either turn down the project or make your client aware of just exactly how much work will be required to clean up past messes.
4. Have you engaged in any link building activities?
Learning more about a prospect’s past link building is another great way to gauge how SEO savvy prospective clients are. For example, hearing a potential client say, “Yes, we’ve focused on building high value backlinks from experts in our industry,” is a much better sign that future campaigns will run smoothly than hearing, “Yeah, we paid some guy $10 to build a couple thousand of those.”
5. Are you targeting any particular keywords?
Understanding whether or not a client is targeting particular keywords gives you some insight into whether a prospect’s expectations are reasonable. Charging a customer your base rate to secure “a couple of first page rankings” won’t do you much good when you find out that the client wants to hit the first page of the “auto insurance” SERP!
6. Has your site ever been penalized?
Helping a site to recover from a past penalty can range from being difficult to downright impossible. And while I’m not saying that you should avoid a project simply because a penalty was issued in the past, go into these types of projects with your eyes wide open to the amount of extra work they’ll require.
7. What metrics are you tracking?
We ask this question to learn more about a company’s marketing objectives (though it also helps us to gauge the business’s level of marketing sophistication). Certain metrics naturally lend themselves to improvement via SEO, which means that a company’s answer to this question helps us to determine whether or not our skills are the right fit for the organization.
8. What is your current website ROI?
This question is always an interesting one to ask, as you’ll receive answers that range from, “What’s a website ROI?” to detailed spreadsheets outlining past results.
In this instance, we aren’t asking because we only want to work with companies that know or don’t know their site’s ROI. We’re asking because it lets us know whether the company has analytics and goals tracking installed, both of which have the potential to influence the ultimate scope of the project.
It also gives us some clues as to the mindset of the organization, as companies that currently measure ROI will need to see a more detailed accounting of our activities, compared to those for whom website tracking is a new concept.
9. What separates your business from your competitors?
Before signing on with any potential customers, it’s important for our company to learn about their industries and their place within it. While it’s obviously easier to work with a client who has a well-defined value proposition compared to others in the field, it can also be a fun challenge to help a business hone in on what sets their products or services apart from their competitors before beginning an SEO campaign based around these benefits.
10. Who is your target audience?
In addition to knowing how a prospective customer’s company is special, finding out more about their target audience helps us to get a baseline feel for the types of promotions that will serve their organization best.
As an example, if we hear that a company is primarily interested in reaching young people, we can automatically assume that social media marketing will be a part of our ultimate proposal. Knowing this helps us put together ballpark estimates on-the-fly, allowing us to provide prospect’s with more accurate cost estimates earlier in the buying cycle.
11. Are you using social media marketing in conjunction with your website?
Developing some measure of perceived authority and following on social media websites is becoming a more important SEO ranking factor by the day, so it’s important for our team to understand a prospective customer’s current social media presence. If we see an existing social media marketing campaign in place, we can often find ways to improve upon it to help our clients better engage with our customers. And if we don’t, we’re often able to bring about positive website results more quickly by integrating this strategy into a customer’s SEO plan.
12. What are you hoping to get out of this SEO project?
Lastly, it’s important for us to know right off the bat what our prospective customers expect to get out of their SEO campaigns. Too many “get rich quick” types have sold SEO as a way to fast Internet results, when the reality is that a well-executed campaign may take months to show progress. Explicitly hammering out what is—and what isn’t possible—when it comes to SEO helps to keep expectations reasonable and ensure that all parties are able to get something of value out of the project.
Do you spend hours hacking around Microsoft Excel every month to create a compelling SEO report for your clients, knowing that they are probably not going to get read or even opened?
In my post below I have provided five tools that can help improve your SEO Reports, taking them from being the standard Excel spreadsheet to a report that can be given to anybody at any level within your client’s organisation.
Price: Offers three different pricing plans - 30 day trial available.
Shufflepoint is a web-based application that integrates directly into Google Analytics to provide reports straight into Microsoft Powerpoint, Excel or bespoke gadgets.
Since using Shufflepoint to create SEO reports, things have become so much simpler. By connecting directly to Google Analytics I am able to create reports based on the templates supplied by Shufflepoint, or I can create customised templates with the support of their technical team.
Using the drag and drop query tool I can quickly import all the relevant data from Google Analytics directly to either Powerpoint or Excel in a visually pleasing format. Once the data has been imported I work through the document adding commentary to each slide to provide the user with some text analysis alongside the graphical representation.
Although Shufflepoint’s main feature is to integrate into Google Analytics, they are continuously growing, by supporting other data driven-platforms including:
- Google AdWords
- ZoomRank
- KeywordEnvy
- Constant Contact
Another cool thing when using Shufflepoint is the auto refresh and delivery function that is installed with the application. Most of the reports generated have the same top level metrics, and this means that each month I am copying and pasting the same charts and graphs. With the auto refresh and delivery feature the reports are automatically updated, leaving me only having to analyse the data downloaded and write detailed commentary to accompany the graphs created.
Creating SEO reports previously took a lot of time, but since I have been using Shufflepoint my reporting time has been reduced, allowing us to concentrate more on the actual work.
Analytics Canvas
Price: Starts at $49 a month + free trial
Analytics Canvas allows you to bring multiple Google Analytics accounts, profiles and campaigns together all under one dashboard.
One of the most frustrating things I find when generating reports for large clients is the tooing and froing from analytics accounts and profiles. Large websites tend to have multiple analytics accounts for different areas of their website but want reporting based on the entire website.
Analytics Canvas allows us to import Google Analytics data in from multiple accounts to a single dashboard to analyse a combined data set, as well as individual profiles. By using the Analytics Canvas data blocks to combine, filter and drill down into the data gathered, you are able to carry out a more thorough analysis.
Once you have created multiple dashboards and utilised the data blocks to their full potential you can export all the data to Excel to create visual representations of the data in the way of graphs and charts.
I have used Analytics Canvas for generating large data sets to analyse and find trends across multiple websites that you might not otherwise be able to see. Using the full power of Analytics Canvas has allowed me to find and provide information to clients that might not necessarily have been identified previously.
The reports generated have saved a large amount of time, but most of all have allowed us to improve our reporting to our clients.
Price: Free
Workbooks is a web-based CRM system which, as well as its obvious customer management uses, has some great SEO and PPC applications.
Traditional reporting tools can only show you a limited part of the buying cycle; you get as far as clicks or conversions (whatever they may be) but no further, and for a lot of sites this won’t show the whole picture. For example, if the aim of your site is to generate leads through an online form you may track conversions as someone filling in a form. While this is useful, it doesn’t take into account the quality of the lead generated. It may be that what you thought was the best keyword to focus on (because it generates the most leads), is actually the worst, as none of the conversions are of good enough quality. Unconverted leads won’t generate any ROI.
This is the gap that Workbooks fills in your reporting. Using cookies, Workbooks is able to track from first touch all the way through to conversion from the site, and then on to completion of the buying cycle. With all this information you are then able to produce incredibly insightful reports and calculate ROI down to keyword level, allowing better analysis of SEO and PPC campaign effectiveness and improved efficiency in the allocation of budgets. Reporting on ROI will also give the best justification of tactics and really prove your worth.
Price: $49
Linkdex is an SEO tool predominately used for link building, although there are other aspects to the software including keyword ranking, task management and auditing.
The biggest asset that Linkdex possess is in its link building and prospecting suite, with some very impressive tools. What makes this tool different to all the rest on the market is that it uses the MajesticSEO index and adds an extra filter on it to remove any links deemed not to be influential. Other features, such as checking to see if the link still exists on a regular basis and showing a timeline of links that are built over a period of time, also stand out.
When creating SEO reports, I believe that incorporating link building progress is a must have and using the graphs and charts provided by Linkdex does exactly that.
Using the timeline chart you can see the progress of the link building campaign by seeing how many links had been created at the start of the program and how many have been built at present. This report will show the client a clear indication of how many influential links have been built to their website. Another good report to show is the site type reports, which splits all your links by the type of platform that they are built on. If you use this report and compare your site to your nearest competitor you can see where you might need to improve by identifying areas that they are stronger in.
Using Linkdex’s link building reports to add to your SEO report will provide a more thorough link building analysis to your client. Since link building is a very important part of SEO, it is imperative that some kind of analysis is included, and if they aren’t already then you should definitely do so moving forward.
Pay Per Click Marketing - What Business Owners Need to Know!
Saturday, September 15, 2012
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Pay per click marketing is where instead of earning positions in the natural or organic search engine rankings, you pay to be seen.
Search engines divide their real estate into two separate pieces:
Organic listings as you know cannot be bought, only earned through relevance, so good positions are only achievable by following structured Search Engine Optimisation techniques on your website.
By using pay per click marketing tools such as Google Adwords or Microsoft Adcenter; now Bing Ads you will appear in the sponsored listings (usually displayed above and alongside the organic or natural listings) by agreeing to pay if someone clicks on your adverts.
At first this may sound very expensive, and without a well managed pay per click marketing campaign it can be, however if managed correctly the costs involved are very reasonable considering the visibility and targeted traffic you will receive.
You will only have to pay a fee when you receive clicks on your adverts. This means that you will only pay the search engine when they send someone to your website. The price of your clicks will vary depending on the industry you are in and the competition bidding on your keywords.
What are the benefits of Pay per Click Marketing?
Pay per click marketing is a very important and useful tool to have in your online marketing arsenal.
The reason this is so valuable is that you can be on the first page of Google for keywords that are targeted to the services and solutions offered by your businesses within minutes of opening up a Google Adwords account.
With Adwords you can create your ad and choose your keywords, save them and then be seen on Google in an instant. This is unlike optimising your website, where you have to wait for the search engines to update and continuously optimise for better results by adding fresh and relevant content that courts backlinks and citations.
The following is a list of benefits for pay per click marketing:
Advantages of Pay Per Click Marketing:
1. Demographic Targeting
If your target audience is 50 year old women in the areas surrounding your business location then you can specifically target for them and only that audience.
2. Immediate rankings
Many local businesses run special events or one off occasions. A pay per click marketing campaign can mean that you can advertise that event immediately by setting up a new campaign and having that go live the same day. This allows your business to benefit from immediate and targeted advertising.
3. Ability to test your search terms before you optimise your entire site for organic searches.
Before investing in optimising a website for specific terms or phrases to rank organically in the search engines, pay per click marketing can help ascertain the true level of traffic as well as interest and commercial intent on the keywords and phrases. The test results may show that some keywords have better results than others while showing that the more obvious keywords have less relevance than first thought.
4. Test headlines and offers
Pay per click marketing can be used to test headlines and offers. You can run separate headlines, known as A/B or split testing, or offers and see which offer gets the best response before committing a large portion of your advertising budget.
5. Track your conversions
Most search engine platforms such as Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcenter give you a management suite that shows you exactly what adverts have been clicked on, what keyword terms where used and also shows you which keywords resulted in your advertising goal. This is allows you to pause certain campaigns while increasing spend on other campaigns that are providing better results.
6. Select a daily budget
When advertising, budget is always a key consideration and when using pay per click marketing you can set a daily budget so that your campaign can last for a set duration as opposed to all going out at one time like other forms of advertising media such as TV, radio or print.
7. Make Instant Changes to increase conversions
With ppc marketing you don’t have to wait to make changes. Changes can be made and instantaneously be reflected in your ads on the search engines and having an impact on your conversions.
The main benefits of using ppc are that you can instantly appear under your desired keywords and have your website seen by people who are interested in your offers. This makes the sales process easier as you do not have to convince people to buy what you are selling – they are already looking for it. This ensures that your conversion rates will be higher than if you are targeting people at random with other forms of advertising.
The disadvantage of PPC Marketing
Although the picture painted of pay per click marketing above is quite a positive one there are some downsides to PPC that you also need to consider.
On the internet, something can become popular or go viral in an instant. This could have a severe impact on your PPC marketing campaign. For example one of the keywords that you are bidding on may be linked to some celebrity or is in the news and suddenly that keyword can become grossly popular meaning that you end up paying for a lot of clicks where the searchers are not actually looking for your product or service.
1. PPC Advertising is not set and forget
Although it can be relatively easy to set up a pay per click campaign, managing, optimising and getting the best and most cost effective results requires constant attention and intervention at the right times. Therefore many business owners who cannot afford the time to monitor their PPC campaign can find that they get very little return for their investment.
2. PPC Marketing can be Really Expensive
The cost of individual keywords and phrases are set by industry and competition levels therefore if you were looking to advertise in the insurance niche then things can get pretty expensive, pretty fast. An example would be if you were looking to advertise for “accident claims”, this could set you back £66.09 per click. That would mean that every person that clicked on your advert would cost your business *£66.09 without them necessarily becoming a lead or client. That all comes down to the conversion rate or performance of your landing page. This could mean that to get one lead could cost several hundreds of pounds if not more. *Source Google Adwords
NB. Please note this is an extreme example as there are many keyword phrases that you can target for just pennies.
3. People Tend To Ignore Sponsored Ads
A recent survey suggests that 94% of people ignore PPC adverts and opt for organic search listings instead.
4. People Are Sceptical of PPC adverts
People do not like being sold to and the fact is that vast majority of sponsored ads are there to sell. People who are looking for information or an unbiased opinion may choose to ignore these adverts and look to the organic listings which are harder to position in.
5. Choosing the Wrong PPC Marketing Company
There are thousands upon thousands of digital marketing agencies that offer Pay Per Click management services, offering companies the earth and stars as far as return on investment for their services. The truth of the matter is that each pay per click campaign is unique and until a test is carried out is hard to quantify what result can be achieved. Take your time and do your due diligence before committing to work with any organisation.
Pay per click marketing can be an integral part of any businesses marketing mix and can be used to drive sales from people who are further down the buying cycle, meaning quick returns. However without the correct set up and careful on-going management it can soon can become a burden on business owners in terms of time and expense.
Yes, prospecting for link building opportunities and reaching out to webmasters to drive new links back to your website can be done for free - but there are plenty of great tools out there that can make the process much easier and much faster!
Check out any of the following options if you need a kick in the pants to take your link building campaigns to the next level:
Tool #1 - Majestic SEO
Majestic SEO is a website browser that allows you to see which sites are linking to your competitors’ pages, allowing you to both determine how difficult it will be to beat them in the SERPs and identify new opportunities to build links back to your own site. The program offers a free report for any site you control (which can be especially useful in ensuring link sources are still linking back to your website), though to access the full spectrum of data this site provides, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid version.
Tool #2 - Open Site Explorer
The SEOMoz Open Site Explorer offers similar features as MajesticSEO, although you’re able to access slightly more information with this program’s free version. Enter your competitors’ websites into the tool and pay special attention to their Inbound Links, Linking Domains and Anchor Text - all of which may help inform your own link building strategy. For even more access, including data on social shares across Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, consider upgrading to the paid version of the tool.
Tool #3 - Raven Tools
Raven Tools’ SEO Tools feature isn’t cheap (plans start at $99/month), but the data this program gives you access to is well worth the expense. Specifically, take a look at the company’s Link Manager program, which allows you to research potential link partners, automatically grab webmaster contact information and send standard link request messages - all from within the same, easy-to-navigate window.
Tool #4 - Ahrefs
Ahrefs, “the best link building tool you’ve never heard of” - and a quick glance at the programs features and functionality demonstrates why. The program’s Backlink Analysis features provides an unprecedented amount of information about a site’s inbound links, including each link’s ALR rating (a measure of the estimated number of visitors following each link per month). This tool allows you to quickly prioritize link prospects and ensure the partners you’re contacting will result in the biggest gains for your site.
Tool #5 - Link Research Tools
Link Research Tool’s Competitive Landscape Analyzer doesn’t just identify potential sites you could contact for links, it goes much, much further. For example, the tool’s unique programming allows it to determine whether you should focus more on SEO or branding links, how your existing link profile compares to your competitors’ and why you may have lost rank within the SERPs. With plans starting at $199/month, this intuitive tool isn’t cheap, but can make a big difference for more advanced webmasters who are operating in competitive niches.
Tool #6 - SEOMoz PRO
SEOMoz PRO isn’t just about link building – it’s a complete SEO management program that allows users to take advantage of SEOMoz’s industry leading knowledge regarding on-site optimization practices, link building techniques and social media marketing. At $99/month, it’s priced competitively with similar programs (including Raven Tools and Ahrefs) and offers more than enough information and tools to keep most webmasters busy for quite a while!
Tool #7 - MozBar
The SEOMoz MozBar program is a free Firefox and Chrome extension that automatically displays loads of valuable link prospecting information within your browser window. For example, the toolbar highlights “no-follow” versus “follow” links, internal and external links, and the presence of specific keywords, allowing you to see - at a glance – which links and keywords your competitors are targeting.
Tool #8 - Ontolo
Like Raven Tools and Link Research Tools, Ontolo offers a comprehensive suite of link research tools for a monthly fee, starting at $97/month. However, this innovative program offers a few unique features that set it apart from these competitors, including automated link prospecting and enhanced competitor link profiling that take much of the tedious “guess work” out of link building. It’s a great option if you’re strapped for time and would rather analyze a presorted list of link prospects than generate your own.
Tool #9 - Market Samurai
Although Market Samurai tends to be more useful as a keyword research tool, it does have a few modules that can be useful for link building activities. Specifically, the “Find Content” module allows you to track down article directories, blogs and other web resources – all of which represent potential link building opportunities. And with a one-time fee of $149, this option can be a much cheaper program to add to your link building arsenal that Raven Tools, Link Research Tools and other programs that require a monthly subscription.
Tool #10 - Tout
Tout isn’t a link building program at all – instead, it’s an email management solution that helps you to extract contact information from websites, automatically create new email messages and copy in template message texts, all with the click of a single button. If you struggle with the process of contacting every potential link partner you turn up with your prospecting efforts, you’ll find programs like Tout to be immensely helpful.
Tool #11 - BuzzStream
BuzzStream offers a comprehensive link management system, including modules that focus on link research, prospect relationship management, and backlink tracking and analysis. It’s highly regarded by industry leader Search Engine Watch, and is one of the few programs of its type that offers starting plans at a price point under $30/month. This makes it a great option for beginning webmasters who may not need the more advanced features provided by programs like Ontolo, Raven Tools or Link Research Tools.
Tool #12 - WhoLinkstoMe
WhoLinkstoMe is a reporting service that provides analytics reports detailing all of a given site’s existing backlinks. The service offers various subscription levels (at various price points, of course), but overall, the program’s reports can be extremely useful in terms of better understanding your site’s existing backlink profile and identifying potential weak areas that should be corrected.
Tool #13 - Wordtracker’s Link Builder
Wordtracker’s Link Builder Tool is a relatively new entry into the link prospecting program market, but it’s already receiving accolades due to Wordtracker’s long-standing reputation for providing quality products. Where the Tool excels is its ability to identify link prospects quickly and sort them into relevant categories, allowing you to pursue only the links that make the most sense for your business. And at $69/month, it’s a cheaper solution for this specific activity than the programs offered by Raven Tools, Link Research Tools and other higher-end tools.
Tool #14 - Advanced Link Manager
Advanced Link Manager is another comprehensive SEO solution which combines on-site optimization analysis with link prospecting and relationship management tools. The program offers several different “levels”, each of which is suited to different types of users, including webmasters, SEO professionals and more. Of particular interest to some readers will be the company’s policy of giving away free licenses to industry bloggers, so be sure to check out this specific link building program if you think you might qualify.
Tool #15 - Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk isn’t specifically a link building platform (it’s actually a micro-hiring program that can be used to complete a number of different tasks), it is possible to automate the process of link building using this service.
Check out any of the following options if you need a kick in the pants to take your link building campaigns to the next level:
Tool #1 - Majestic SEO
Majestic SEO is a website browser that allows you to see which sites are linking to your competitors’ pages, allowing you to both determine how difficult it will be to beat them in the SERPs and identify new opportunities to build links back to your own site. The program offers a free report for any site you control (which can be especially useful in ensuring link sources are still linking back to your website), though to access the full spectrum of data this site provides, you’ll need to upgrade to the paid version.
Tool #2 - Open Site Explorer
The SEOMoz Open Site Explorer offers similar features as MajesticSEO, although you’re able to access slightly more information with this program’s free version. Enter your competitors’ websites into the tool and pay special attention to their Inbound Links, Linking Domains and Anchor Text - all of which may help inform your own link building strategy. For even more access, including data on social shares across Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, consider upgrading to the paid version of the tool.
Tool #3 - Raven Tools
Raven Tools’ SEO Tools feature isn’t cheap (plans start at $99/month), but the data this program gives you access to is well worth the expense. Specifically, take a look at the company’s Link Manager program, which allows you to research potential link partners, automatically grab webmaster contact information and send standard link request messages - all from within the same, easy-to-navigate window.
Tool #4 - Ahrefs
Ahrefs, “the best link building tool you’ve never heard of” - and a quick glance at the programs features and functionality demonstrates why. The program’s Backlink Analysis features provides an unprecedented amount of information about a site’s inbound links, including each link’s ALR rating (a measure of the estimated number of visitors following each link per month). This tool allows you to quickly prioritize link prospects and ensure the partners you’re contacting will result in the biggest gains for your site.
Tool #5 - Link Research Tools
Link Research Tool’s Competitive Landscape Analyzer doesn’t just identify potential sites you could contact for links, it goes much, much further. For example, the tool’s unique programming allows it to determine whether you should focus more on SEO or branding links, how your existing link profile compares to your competitors’ and why you may have lost rank within the SERPs. With plans starting at $199/month, this intuitive tool isn’t cheap, but can make a big difference for more advanced webmasters who are operating in competitive niches.
Tool #6 - SEOMoz PRO
SEOMoz PRO isn’t just about link building – it’s a complete SEO management program that allows users to take advantage of SEOMoz’s industry leading knowledge regarding on-site optimization practices, link building techniques and social media marketing. At $99/month, it’s priced competitively with similar programs (including Raven Tools and Ahrefs) and offers more than enough information and tools to keep most webmasters busy for quite a while!
Tool #7 - MozBar
The SEOMoz MozBar program is a free Firefox and Chrome extension that automatically displays loads of valuable link prospecting information within your browser window. For example, the toolbar highlights “no-follow” versus “follow” links, internal and external links, and the presence of specific keywords, allowing you to see - at a glance – which links and keywords your competitors are targeting.
Tool #8 - Ontolo
Like Raven Tools and Link Research Tools, Ontolo offers a comprehensive suite of link research tools for a monthly fee, starting at $97/month. However, this innovative program offers a few unique features that set it apart from these competitors, including automated link prospecting and enhanced competitor link profiling that take much of the tedious “guess work” out of link building. It’s a great option if you’re strapped for time and would rather analyze a presorted list of link prospects than generate your own.
Tool #9 - Market Samurai
Although Market Samurai tends to be more useful as a keyword research tool, it does have a few modules that can be useful for link building activities. Specifically, the “Find Content” module allows you to track down article directories, blogs and other web resources – all of which represent potential link building opportunities. And with a one-time fee of $149, this option can be a much cheaper program to add to your link building arsenal that Raven Tools, Link Research Tools and other programs that require a monthly subscription.
Tool #10 - Tout
Tout isn’t a link building program at all – instead, it’s an email management solution that helps you to extract contact information from websites, automatically create new email messages and copy in template message texts, all with the click of a single button. If you struggle with the process of contacting every potential link partner you turn up with your prospecting efforts, you’ll find programs like Tout to be immensely helpful.
Tool #11 - BuzzStream
BuzzStream offers a comprehensive link management system, including modules that focus on link research, prospect relationship management, and backlink tracking and analysis. It’s highly regarded by industry leader Search Engine Watch, and is one of the few programs of its type that offers starting plans at a price point under $30/month. This makes it a great option for beginning webmasters who may not need the more advanced features provided by programs like Ontolo, Raven Tools or Link Research Tools.
Tool #12 - WhoLinkstoMe
WhoLinkstoMe is a reporting service that provides analytics reports detailing all of a given site’s existing backlinks. The service offers various subscription levels (at various price points, of course), but overall, the program’s reports can be extremely useful in terms of better understanding your site’s existing backlink profile and identifying potential weak areas that should be corrected.
Tool #13 - Wordtracker’s Link Builder
Wordtracker’s Link Builder Tool is a relatively new entry into the link prospecting program market, but it’s already receiving accolades due to Wordtracker’s long-standing reputation for providing quality products. Where the Tool excels is its ability to identify link prospects quickly and sort them into relevant categories, allowing you to pursue only the links that make the most sense for your business. And at $69/month, it’s a cheaper solution for this specific activity than the programs offered by Raven Tools, Link Research Tools and other higher-end tools.
Tool #14 - Advanced Link Manager
Advanced Link Manager is another comprehensive SEO solution which combines on-site optimization analysis with link prospecting and relationship management tools. The program offers several different “levels”, each of which is suited to different types of users, including webmasters, SEO professionals and more. Of particular interest to some readers will be the company’s policy of giving away free licenses to industry bloggers, so be sure to check out this specific link building program if you think you might qualify.
Tool #15 - Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk isn’t specifically a link building platform (it’s actually a micro-hiring program that can be used to complete a number of different tasks), it is possible to automate the process of link building using this service.
Too often we, as SEOs, get our hands on a website after it has been built. Designers focus on making sites “pretty” and “usable.” Unfortunately, they either lack the knowledge or simply don’t care about the search value a website offers. This is where the ever growing feud between SEO and designer begins.
Fortunately, there are a lot of compromises that can be made without sacrificing website aesthetics or search value. It all starts with identifying elements on the website and making subtle changes that could make a website continue to look great, but also have a fair shot at generating better search visibility.
15 SEO Elements You Have Complete Control Of
Google has said in the past that it incorporates hundreds of parameters into its ranking algorithm (Ann Smarty even wrote a post trying to identify as many as she could here on SEJ). Many of these rankings parameters we either have no idea about (they don’t tell us), or it’s very hard to build upon (links and social signals, for instance). We do, however, know 15 on-page SEO elements that are being used (to different degrees & effects, of course) and that we have 100 percent control of.
1) Website Content
Content is the key to any successful SEO campaign. Long gone are the days when you can slap up a single page or even a three- to five-page website and rank well. It’s all about creating quality content that generates natural links.
2) Canonicalization
Too often we see link equity split up among multiple pages that have the exact same content. This is one SEO element that we have complete control of and should always be keeping an eye on. I have seen website 301 redirect their non-www version of their homepage to the www version and see dramatic increases in their sites rankings practically overnight!
3) Title Tags
The simple answer here is to write title tags within 70 characters. Darren Slatten has a very interesting case study proving that Google may actually utilize pixel size instead of character limits. What’s most important here is that you write unique, quality title tags that support the content on the page. The days of stuffing keywords into the title tags with a “|” should remain in the past.
4) URL Structure
When was the last time you told your buddy about an article you read on domain.com/articlename+-&38%_really-weird_url83293892348? Probably never. Google might not have as difficult time indexing dynamic URLs as in the past, but it’s never a good idea to make Google work harder than they have to. Use static URLs.
5) Internal Linking
If you have read my blog before, you probably noticed I have always been a proponent of two often misused on-page elements: Internal Linking and Site Architecture. If both are done correctly, you can see some major increases in your sites rankings. If done poorly or never fixed, you might be overworking in other areas of SEO, such as link building which arguably is exponentially more difficult.
6) Site Architecture/Navigation
As mentioned in the internal linking, I have a soft spot for site architecture. Siloing content on a website can add a lot of value. Not only can you internally link appropriately, but every inbound link acquired helps the entire silo out, not just that particular page.
7) Recurring Content
Recurring content is something that has become ever so important in modern say SEO campaigns. Not only does recurring content help you rank for long-tail keywords, but it also gives you opportunities to be found socially (through sharing) and acquisition of “natural” links.
8) Site Speed Optimization
Google has said in the past that it will give preference to websites that have fast loading time in search results. It’s not to say that you can jump from page five to one by simply having a fast website, but if it’s beneficial to your site visitors, you can bet Google values it as well.
9) Social Integration
Going off the hints and queues that Google gives us, it’s important to incorporate social signals into our websites. This doesn’t mean you have to have floating buttons on every one of your pages, but even a “Like” count button or a “Plus One” button could do the trick. Plus, who doesn’t want the potential referral traffic that Facebook, Pinterest, or even Google+ can potentially send?
10) Image Alt Attribute
Alt attributes were originally incorporated into websites so that people with visual disabilities could still understand what the images were displaying. Since Google spiders don’t see images as we do, it’s important to include these alt attributes for this reason, as well. If you’re capable of incorporating a relevant keyword within the image, you might get some ranking benefits from it, too, both in Web search and image search.
11) Custom 404 Error Pages
Custom 404 error pages are very important for two reasons: It keeps visitors on your website AND it keeps search spiders on your website. In both instances, if a person (or bot) clicks on a broken link or attempts to manually type in a URL on your domain and gets it wrong, they will be shown a custom 404 error page.
These pages typically include your navigation, in addition to a nice message that tells them what they are looking for doesn’t exist. The search spiders may even follow the navigation links to continue spidering the site versus dropping off your site all together.
12) Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions at one point were believed to play a role in Google’s ranking algorithm. Today, it is more commonly believed that it is an opportunity to increase your Click-Through Rate in the organic search results. Who doesn’t want to improve CTR? Continue to play around with your meta descriptions.
13) XML Sitemap
Do you have a large website with imperfect site architecture or navigation? An XML sitemap might help you get more pages indexed in Google. While some SEOs swear an XML sitemap offers no value, it certainly does not hurt you either. With a lot of tools to generate XML sitemaps for you (especially on WordPress), you should take a little bit of time and generate one.
14) Header Tags
Here’s another SEO element that many argue the value of. Some say that your H1 tags should include your keywords, while others simply believe having your keywords in the sites header (with or without the tags) is where the value derives. Regardless, since it certainly doesn’t hurt you to use tags, it’s a good habit to use. This isn’t an SEO element I would necessarily redesign your entire website to incorporate, but it’s a best practice to consider when building fresh websites.
15) Robots.txt File
Who doesn’t like a file that dictates exactly what Google can look at on your website? Believe it or not, there are files on sites that nobody wants public. A robots.txt file (or even meta robots file on individual pages) can save a lot of agony in the future. I personally am a fan of including a path to my XML sitemap from the robots.txt file, since it is believed that Google searches the Robots file first before adventuring further into your website.
Fortunately, there are a lot of compromises that can be made without sacrificing website aesthetics or search value. It all starts with identifying elements on the website and making subtle changes that could make a website continue to look great, but also have a fair shot at generating better search visibility.
15 SEO Elements You Have Complete Control Of
Google has said in the past that it incorporates hundreds of parameters into its ranking algorithm (Ann Smarty even wrote a post trying to identify as many as she could here on SEJ). Many of these rankings parameters we either have no idea about (they don’t tell us), or it’s very hard to build upon (links and social signals, for instance). We do, however, know 15 on-page SEO elements that are being used (to different degrees & effects, of course) and that we have 100 percent control of.
1) Website Content
Content is the key to any successful SEO campaign. Long gone are the days when you can slap up a single page or even a three- to five-page website and rank well. It’s all about creating quality content that generates natural links.
2) Canonicalization
Too often we see link equity split up among multiple pages that have the exact same content. This is one SEO element that we have complete control of and should always be keeping an eye on. I have seen website 301 redirect their non-www version of their homepage to the www version and see dramatic increases in their sites rankings practically overnight!
3) Title Tags
The simple answer here is to write title tags within 70 characters. Darren Slatten has a very interesting case study proving that Google may actually utilize pixel size instead of character limits. What’s most important here is that you write unique, quality title tags that support the content on the page. The days of stuffing keywords into the title tags with a “|” should remain in the past.
4) URL Structure
When was the last time you told your buddy about an article you read on domain.com/articlename+-&38%_really-weird_url83293892348? Probably never. Google might not have as difficult time indexing dynamic URLs as in the past, but it’s never a good idea to make Google work harder than they have to. Use static URLs.
5) Internal Linking
If you have read my blog before, you probably noticed I have always been a proponent of two often misused on-page elements: Internal Linking and Site Architecture. If both are done correctly, you can see some major increases in your sites rankings. If done poorly or never fixed, you might be overworking in other areas of SEO, such as link building which arguably is exponentially more difficult.
6) Site Architecture/Navigation
As mentioned in the internal linking, I have a soft spot for site architecture. Siloing content on a website can add a lot of value. Not only can you internally link appropriately, but every inbound link acquired helps the entire silo out, not just that particular page.
7) Recurring Content
Recurring content is something that has become ever so important in modern say SEO campaigns. Not only does recurring content help you rank for long-tail keywords, but it also gives you opportunities to be found socially (through sharing) and acquisition of “natural” links.
8) Site Speed Optimization
Google has said in the past that it will give preference to websites that have fast loading time in search results. It’s not to say that you can jump from page five to one by simply having a fast website, but if it’s beneficial to your site visitors, you can bet Google values it as well.
9) Social Integration
Going off the hints and queues that Google gives us, it’s important to incorporate social signals into our websites. This doesn’t mean you have to have floating buttons on every one of your pages, but even a “Like” count button or a “Plus One” button could do the trick. Plus, who doesn’t want the potential referral traffic that Facebook, Pinterest, or even Google+ can potentially send?
10) Image Alt Attribute
Alt attributes were originally incorporated into websites so that people with visual disabilities could still understand what the images were displaying. Since Google spiders don’t see images as we do, it’s important to include these alt attributes for this reason, as well. If you’re capable of incorporating a relevant keyword within the image, you might get some ranking benefits from it, too, both in Web search and image search.
11) Custom 404 Error Pages
Custom 404 error pages are very important for two reasons: It keeps visitors on your website AND it keeps search spiders on your website. In both instances, if a person (or bot) clicks on a broken link or attempts to manually type in a URL on your domain and gets it wrong, they will be shown a custom 404 error page.
These pages typically include your navigation, in addition to a nice message that tells them what they are looking for doesn’t exist. The search spiders may even follow the navigation links to continue spidering the site versus dropping off your site all together.
12) Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions at one point were believed to play a role in Google’s ranking algorithm. Today, it is more commonly believed that it is an opportunity to increase your Click-Through Rate in the organic search results. Who doesn’t want to improve CTR? Continue to play around with your meta descriptions.
13) XML Sitemap
Do you have a large website with imperfect site architecture or navigation? An XML sitemap might help you get more pages indexed in Google. While some SEOs swear an XML sitemap offers no value, it certainly does not hurt you either. With a lot of tools to generate XML sitemaps for you (especially on WordPress), you should take a little bit of time and generate one.
14) Header Tags
Here’s another SEO element that many argue the value of. Some say that your H1 tags should include your keywords, while others simply believe having your keywords in the sites header (with or without the
15) Robots.txt File
Who doesn’t like a file that dictates exactly what Google can look at on your website? Believe it or not, there are files on sites that nobody wants public. A robots.txt file (or even meta robots file on individual pages) can save a lot of agony in the future. I personally am a fan of including a path to my XML sitemap from the robots.txt file, since it is believed that Google searches the Robots file first before adventuring further into your website.
Working in the field of website optimization may be many things, but it’s certainly never boring! If you’re new to the industry and wondering what your day-to-day activities should look like, consider the following elements for guidance on how good SEOs structure their word days:
Link Building and Monitoring
Because link building plays such a vital role in website success, all good SEOs try to make this practice a part of their daily routines. The only exception to this rule occurs in large SEO agencies, in which workers are specialized to handle different aspects of the SEO process-whether that’s content creation, on-site optimization, link building, or some other element of the digital marketing process.
In all other cases, SEOs are constantly looking for new opportunities to create links, reading industry blogs to find new Link Building Ideas, or tracking existing links in order to monitor and correct changes in a website’s backlink profile.
Education and Community Interactions
Because the Internet marketing industry is constantly changing, ongoing education is an important part of any SEOs work day. In most cases, this takes the form of perusing industry blogs to stay abreast of any major algorithm changes or newly discovered SEO techniques.
At the same time, SEOs may leave comments on these articles, post messages in community forums, or ask questions on social media websites. Not only do these techniques help to expand an SEOs knowledge, they’re also great for building up a reputation and a perceived level of authority in a sometimes cutthroat industry.
Testing SEO Theories to “Learn by Doing”
Good SEOs put their SEO theories to practice on their websites in order to determine conclusively what is and what isn’t working at any given time. Because Google and the other search engines never fully reveal all their secrets (and because not all of the advice found on industry blogs is legit or trustworthy), real SEOs know that they’ll only uncover the truth about what components cause a website to rank well in the SERPs by experimenting in real world settings.
Tracking Rankings, Traffic, and Conversion Rates
Probably the most boring part of any SEO’s day is the time spent tracking ranking, traffic, and conversion rate metrics. A good SEO relies on complete sets of data, and unfortunately, there are really no shortcuts when it comes to compiling and analyzing these figures.
But however mind-numbing this data collection may be, SEOs recognize that it’s vitally important. Staying on top of even minor downturns in Web data trends can help SEOs to nip potentially serious problems in the bud by taking corrective action before serious search engine penalties can be assessed.
On-site Optimization
On-site optimization is never over. No matter how many code corrections, content tweaks, or image updates an SEO makes, there will always be new elements to optimize and others that can be optimized better.
For this reason, many agencies will expand their team of on-site analysts before growing any other part of their companies, especially considering that changes made to on-site elements often result in the fastest improvements in a site’s performance. Unlike backlinks, which may take time to index and value, on-site changes can make a significant difference in how well the search engines can read a website, making these tweaks a top priority for any SEO—agency-based or otherwise.
Monitoring Website Competitors
Paying attention to changes made on competitor websites offers a number of different benefits to working SEOs. Carefully monitoring a competitor’s backlink profile may expose weaknesses in the company’s strategy that allow the working SEO to surge past his opponent in the SERPs. For example, if a competitor’s link graph shows no evidence of social media marketing, focusing on this strategy could give an SEO the edge needed to attain even higher natural search rankings.
At the same time, monitoring a competitor’s activities may reveal information on new strategies that either work or don’t. It can be time-consuming to monitor both in-house websites and competitor pages, but good SEOs know that there’s plenty of quality information to be gained if they’re willing to put in the effort.
Collaborating with Internal Development, Marketing, and Product Teams
Today, SEO is about more than just backlinks and on-site optimization. A good SEO campaign requires collaboration with development teams (to ensure that a site’s code is functioning optimally from an SEO standpoint), with marketing teams (to identify any branding elements that should be used appropriately on the website), and with product teams (to enhance product sales pages in order to create a stronger on-site user experience).
As a result, all SEOs must spend time collaborating with relevant parties, either with fellow in-house employees or by setting up meetings with client departments. While these activities do take time away from “hard SEO,” they’re important as they can ultimately result in a stronger website that appeals better to both the site visitors and the search engines.
Oh, the email … As pretty much anyone who works online knows that there’s never a shortage of email messages to check. From client communications to internal company updates and from industry newsletters to social networking profile notifications, all SEOs spend at least part of their days checking and responding to email.
Networking
Spending time connecting with others in the industry isn’t just important for agency-employed SEOs, who often rely on these casual contacts in order to drum up new business and learn new techniques by “talking shop” with one another.
As an added bonus, getting out there and shooting the breeze with others can be one of the easiest ways to build links ever. I can’t tell you how many lunch meetings or happy hour cocktails I’ve had that have turned into powerful, high value backlinks pointing to my company’s website.
Having Fun
Of course, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with having a little fun alongside SEO work. In general, I’ve found that taking breaks throughout the day to do things like play pool, work out, study French, or do anything else that’s away from the computer helps to keep me fresh and focused throughout the day—ultimately making me better at my job.
Obviously, most in-house SEO employees won’t be able to get away with most of these activities while on the clock (unless they have a fun boss like me!). However, if you manage an internal team of SEO workers, be aware that taking short breaks from total productivity helps to clear employees’ minds and make them better at their jobs. SEO can be highly technical, which is why this refreshing downtime is so valuable in preventing burnout and helping to bring about website breakthroughs.
Now, whether you’re using this list to consider whether a job in SEO is right for you or to better understand your in-house SEO or external consultant, be aware that day-to-day activities will vary slightly based on the management structure of your organization, the number of meetings the SEO is require to attend, and whether or not the SEO is employed in-house or by an agency. Indeed, there may be some days when you focus exclusively on on-site optimization and others where your total focus is on link building campaigns.
However, this outline should give you a better idea of what responsibilities SEOs have—no matter where or how they work. I hope you find it useful when it comes to working more effectively with these important team members!
Link Building and Monitoring
Because link building plays such a vital role in website success, all good SEOs try to make this practice a part of their daily routines. The only exception to this rule occurs in large SEO agencies, in which workers are specialized to handle different aspects of the SEO process-whether that’s content creation, on-site optimization, link building, or some other element of the digital marketing process.
In all other cases, SEOs are constantly looking for new opportunities to create links, reading industry blogs to find new Link Building Ideas, or tracking existing links in order to monitor and correct changes in a website’s backlink profile.
Education and Community Interactions
Because the Internet marketing industry is constantly changing, ongoing education is an important part of any SEOs work day. In most cases, this takes the form of perusing industry blogs to stay abreast of any major algorithm changes or newly discovered SEO techniques.
At the same time, SEOs may leave comments on these articles, post messages in community forums, or ask questions on social media websites. Not only do these techniques help to expand an SEOs knowledge, they’re also great for building up a reputation and a perceived level of authority in a sometimes cutthroat industry.
Testing SEO Theories to “Learn by Doing”
Good SEOs put their SEO theories to practice on their websites in order to determine conclusively what is and what isn’t working at any given time. Because Google and the other search engines never fully reveal all their secrets (and because not all of the advice found on industry blogs is legit or trustworthy), real SEOs know that they’ll only uncover the truth about what components cause a website to rank well in the SERPs by experimenting in real world settings.
Tracking Rankings, Traffic, and Conversion Rates
Probably the most boring part of any SEO’s day is the time spent tracking ranking, traffic, and conversion rate metrics. A good SEO relies on complete sets of data, and unfortunately, there are really no shortcuts when it comes to compiling and analyzing these figures.
But however mind-numbing this data collection may be, SEOs recognize that it’s vitally important. Staying on top of even minor downturns in Web data trends can help SEOs to nip potentially serious problems in the bud by taking corrective action before serious search engine penalties can be assessed.
On-site Optimization
On-site optimization is never over. No matter how many code corrections, content tweaks, or image updates an SEO makes, there will always be new elements to optimize and others that can be optimized better.
For this reason, many agencies will expand their team of on-site analysts before growing any other part of their companies, especially considering that changes made to on-site elements often result in the fastest improvements in a site’s performance. Unlike backlinks, which may take time to index and value, on-site changes can make a significant difference in how well the search engines can read a website, making these tweaks a top priority for any SEO—agency-based or otherwise.
Monitoring Website Competitors
Paying attention to changes made on competitor websites offers a number of different benefits to working SEOs. Carefully monitoring a competitor’s backlink profile may expose weaknesses in the company’s strategy that allow the working SEO to surge past his opponent in the SERPs. For example, if a competitor’s link graph shows no evidence of social media marketing, focusing on this strategy could give an SEO the edge needed to attain even higher natural search rankings.
At the same time, monitoring a competitor’s activities may reveal information on new strategies that either work or don’t. It can be time-consuming to monitor both in-house websites and competitor pages, but good SEOs know that there’s plenty of quality information to be gained if they’re willing to put in the effort.
Collaborating with Internal Development, Marketing, and Product Teams
Today, SEO is about more than just backlinks and on-site optimization. A good SEO campaign requires collaboration with development teams (to ensure that a site’s code is functioning optimally from an SEO standpoint), with marketing teams (to identify any branding elements that should be used appropriately on the website), and with product teams (to enhance product sales pages in order to create a stronger on-site user experience).
As a result, all SEOs must spend time collaborating with relevant parties, either with fellow in-house employees or by setting up meetings with client departments. While these activities do take time away from “hard SEO,” they’re important as they can ultimately result in a stronger website that appeals better to both the site visitors and the search engines.
Oh, the email … As pretty much anyone who works online knows that there’s never a shortage of email messages to check. From client communications to internal company updates and from industry newsletters to social networking profile notifications, all SEOs spend at least part of their days checking and responding to email.
Networking
Spending time connecting with others in the industry isn’t just important for agency-employed SEOs, who often rely on these casual contacts in order to drum up new business and learn new techniques by “talking shop” with one another.
As an added bonus, getting out there and shooting the breeze with others can be one of the easiest ways to build links ever. I can’t tell you how many lunch meetings or happy hour cocktails I’ve had that have turned into powerful, high value backlinks pointing to my company’s website.
Having Fun
Of course, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with having a little fun alongside SEO work. In general, I’ve found that taking breaks throughout the day to do things like play pool, work out, study French, or do anything else that’s away from the computer helps to keep me fresh and focused throughout the day—ultimately making me better at my job.
Obviously, most in-house SEO employees won’t be able to get away with most of these activities while on the clock (unless they have a fun boss like me!). However, if you manage an internal team of SEO workers, be aware that taking short breaks from total productivity helps to clear employees’ minds and make them better at their jobs. SEO can be highly technical, which is why this refreshing downtime is so valuable in preventing burnout and helping to bring about website breakthroughs.
Now, whether you’re using this list to consider whether a job in SEO is right for you or to better understand your in-house SEO or external consultant, be aware that day-to-day activities will vary slightly based on the management structure of your organization, the number of meetings the SEO is require to attend, and whether or not the SEO is employed in-house or by an agency. Indeed, there may be some days when you focus exclusively on on-site optimization and others where your total focus is on link building campaigns.
However, this outline should give you a better idea of what responsibilities SEOs have—no matter where or how they work. I hope you find it useful when it comes to working more effectively with these important team members!
SEO is one of the marketing strategies used for increasing site visibility in search engines. Different people follow different SEO techniques for organic promotion in search engines; some may be ethical, some non-ethical and others intermediate. These practices are colored according to techniques used, compared with the search engines recommendations and guidelines.
Here is the list of SEO colors and definitions determined by various SEO communities.
White hat SEO - Called as ethical SEO, it follows search engines guidelines. In this a content page that the search engine indexes and subsequently ranks, would contain the same content that a visitor would see. White hat advice is explained as a procedure of creating content for users, not for search engines, thereby making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than finding out a method to trick the algorithm from its designated intention.
Black hat SEO - known as Un-ethical SEO, is a procedure that tries to achieve high rankings in short time by using various SEO techniques that don't follow search engine guidelines, or treated as means of deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another black hat method is creating different pages for the search engines and the users, depending upon who is accessing the website. This method is referred to as cloaking.
Gray Hat SEO - These are SEO tactics that cannot be termed either as ethical or unethical, but can be termed as something in between the two. It is unlikely that a site gets banned or can have negative affects on it, due to following Gray Hat SEO tactics.
Green Hat SEO - It is just a matter of putting all unnecessary procedures and SEO actions to an end and focusing on what all is essential to get in website visitors. When focus is given more on the importance and prominence to the people who visit your website, your site will create more brand awareness, thereby becoming more trustworthy, rather than targeting keywords that provide more traffic, even though it means that you do not have any relevant pages suitable for them. It is to be understood that a happy customer is someone who is more important to your business to get in more profit to you, rather than getting more of inward links.
Blue Hat SEO - Some say its related to advanced SEO techniques used for web promotion but the same has not yet been declared by any top SEO communities or SEO groups. Originally Blue Hat SEO is a name of a weblog so many misunderstand.
And please do note that these SEO colors are not standard ones, they are marketing types distinguished between SEOs who adopt their SEO techniques from ethical to unethical or a mix of both. Probably in the near future we might even come up with more colors of SEO as seen in rainbow!!!
Here is the list of SEO colors and definitions determined by various SEO communities.
White hat SEO - Called as ethical SEO, it follows search engines guidelines. In this a content page that the search engine indexes and subsequently ranks, would contain the same content that a visitor would see. White hat advice is explained as a procedure of creating content for users, not for search engines, thereby making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than finding out a method to trick the algorithm from its designated intention.
Black hat SEO - known as Un-ethical SEO, is a procedure that tries to achieve high rankings in short time by using various SEO techniques that don't follow search engine guidelines, or treated as means of deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible div, or positioned off screen. Another black hat method is creating different pages for the search engines and the users, depending upon who is accessing the website. This method is referred to as cloaking.
Gray Hat SEO - These are SEO tactics that cannot be termed either as ethical or unethical, but can be termed as something in between the two. It is unlikely that a site gets banned or can have negative affects on it, due to following Gray Hat SEO tactics.
Green Hat SEO - It is just a matter of putting all unnecessary procedures and SEO actions to an end and focusing on what all is essential to get in website visitors. When focus is given more on the importance and prominence to the people who visit your website, your site will create more brand awareness, thereby becoming more trustworthy, rather than targeting keywords that provide more traffic, even though it means that you do not have any relevant pages suitable for them. It is to be understood that a happy customer is someone who is more important to your business to get in more profit to you, rather than getting more of inward links.
Blue Hat SEO - Some say its related to advanced SEO techniques used for web promotion but the same has not yet been declared by any top SEO communities or SEO groups. Originally Blue Hat SEO is a name of a weblog so many misunderstand.
And please do note that these SEO colors are not standard ones, they are marketing types distinguished between SEOs who adopt their SEO techniques from ethical to unethical or a mix of both. Probably in the near future we might even come up with more colors of SEO as seen in rainbow!!!
Microsoft posted and then retracted their announcement of renaming Microsoft Advertising to the Yahoo Bing Network. Part of that announcement is that Microsoft adCenter, the name of Microsoft’s search ad network, is now being renamed to Bing Ads.
You can see the retracted blog post on the new Yahoo Bing Network blog. It says, “Introducing the Yahoo! Bing Network” and talks about how “Bing Ads, the platform formerly known as adCenter” is the new name for adCenter.
The functionality and advertising network seems to be unchanged. Rather, this seems to be just a rebranding of the network.
You can follow the new brand at yahoobingnetwork.com. There is a Facebook page and a Twitter account. As you navigate to the old blog and advertiser login, you will see the new “Bing Ads” logo – also at bingads.com. I do find it interesting that Yahoo’s name comes before the Bing brand. It is fairly known that Microsoft runs the technology behind the ad network but Yahoo runs the people, support and sales behind the ad network.
Here is the blog post that was pulled down tonight from the Microsoft Advertising Blog, renamed the Bing Ads blog:
Today we are pleased to introduce you to the Yahoo! Bing Network, the new official name for our combined search marketplace. It reflects the commitment of both Microsoft and Yahoo! to bring you a broad, high-value, and engaged audience that helps grow your business.
The Yahoo! Bing Network represents the highly engaged, valuable audiences that use Yahoo! Search, Bing, and our partner sites. With Bing Ads, the platform formerly known as adCenter, advertisers can tap into this audience, which is comprised of 151 million unique searchers in the U.S. who are likely to spend 24% more than the average searcher, and likely to spend 5% more than Google searchers in the U.S.*
The Yahoo! Bing Network a must-buy for search advertisers seeking new customers while meeting key performance objectives. With ongoing platform enhancements and strategic account teams, we deliver the visibility and additional insight to better connect you to our significant, distinct and high-value audience. Contact your account manager or support team to find out more and be sure to follow the Yahoo! Bing Network on Facebook and Twitter.
You can see the retracted blog post on the new Yahoo Bing Network blog. It says, “Introducing the Yahoo! Bing Network” and talks about how “Bing Ads, the platform formerly known as adCenter” is the new name for adCenter.
The functionality and advertising network seems to be unchanged. Rather, this seems to be just a rebranding of the network.
You can follow the new brand at yahoobingnetwork.com. There is a Facebook page and a Twitter account. As you navigate to the old blog and advertiser login, you will see the new “Bing Ads” logo – also at bingads.com. I do find it interesting that Yahoo’s name comes before the Bing brand. It is fairly known that Microsoft runs the technology behind the ad network but Yahoo runs the people, support and sales behind the ad network.
Here is the blog post that was pulled down tonight from the Microsoft Advertising Blog, renamed the Bing Ads blog:
Today we are pleased to introduce you to the Yahoo! Bing Network, the new official name for our combined search marketplace. It reflects the commitment of both Microsoft and Yahoo! to bring you a broad, high-value, and engaged audience that helps grow your business.
The Yahoo! Bing Network represents the highly engaged, valuable audiences that use Yahoo! Search, Bing, and our partner sites. With Bing Ads, the platform formerly known as adCenter, advertisers can tap into this audience, which is comprised of 151 million unique searchers in the U.S. who are likely to spend 24% more than the average searcher, and likely to spend 5% more than Google searchers in the U.S.*
The Yahoo! Bing Network a must-buy for search advertisers seeking new customers while meeting key performance objectives. With ongoing platform enhancements and strategic account teams, we deliver the visibility and additional insight to better connect you to our significant, distinct and high-value audience. Contact your account manager or support team to find out more and be sure to follow the Yahoo! Bing Network on Facebook and Twitter.
What is it? Get the tools and resources you need to become a Microsoft adCenter expert. The Accredited Professional program offers free training to help you learn how to better manage and optimize adCenter campaigns.
Get up to speed on adCenter with our free training videos. You can watch at your own pace and easily keep track of your progress. Once you’re ready, take the exam to get accredited.
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- Take the exam.
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Top businesses all around the world frequently use SEO marketing techniques to effectively promote their businesses. It is only logical, then, that this method will more than likely also be able to work for your business. What exactly is SEO marketing? How does it work? How will your business benefit greatly by using SEO marketing?
Higher Rankings in Search Engines
One of the most common SEO marketing methods is writing search engine optimized (SEO) articles. These articles use certain keywords so that they will be more visible on search engine results. Regardless of the search engine that online visitors use, they type specific keywords into the search box. That search engine then looks for and displays all of the results that are relevant to those specific keywords or phrases that were entered. Therefore, a good SEO article will contain an adequate amount of those relevant keywords but also be meaningful as well so that they will not be considered as Spam. Once the search engine locates your SEO articles, it will display them at the top of the results. The higher your articles are ranked, the higher the visibility for those articles and your website overall.
Advertising for Your Products & Services
Once your articles have a high ranking and are available to potential customers easily, you have the chance to capture their attention. After grabbing your target audience’s attention, you can tell them about your company and services you provide. You can provide any information about your company through your SEO articles.
Drive Potential Customers to Your Site
You can include a link to your company’s website in your SEO article so that people will visit it. Once your article is published, it has its own life. People will share it on blogs, social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, or in other articles if they find it interesting. The more people share your article, the more traffic your site will have.
Management of Your Branding Messages
In today’s business world, you cannot control how people view your company. Competitors or former customers can leave negative reviews about your company. The electronic media can give your business an image you do not want. Through SEO articles, you can change the way people think about your business. You can include certain branding messages in your SEO articles to create the image you want.
The Expansion of Your Online Presence
A business without any online presence is less likely to be known by so many people. A website alone is not enough to attract as many customers as you want. SEO articles can help build or create your company’s online presence so that your content will be found by many people. As a result, your company will be known by a lot of people.
SEO articles are a great and inexpensive method to promote your business. You could either write yourself or hire SEO experts. Since writing great SEO articles is a science and an art that requires a lot of knowledge and experience, it is best to outsource them to professionals. Hiring SEO experts is extremely beneficial for you. The experts know exactly how to write a great SEO article that will help your business, and you can focus all your attention on your business.
Higher Rankings in Search Engines
One of the most common SEO marketing methods is writing search engine optimized (SEO) articles. These articles use certain keywords so that they will be more visible on search engine results. Regardless of the search engine that online visitors use, they type specific keywords into the search box. That search engine then looks for and displays all of the results that are relevant to those specific keywords or phrases that were entered. Therefore, a good SEO article will contain an adequate amount of those relevant keywords but also be meaningful as well so that they will not be considered as Spam. Once the search engine locates your SEO articles, it will display them at the top of the results. The higher your articles are ranked, the higher the visibility for those articles and your website overall.
Advertising for Your Products & Services
Once your articles have a high ranking and are available to potential customers easily, you have the chance to capture their attention. After grabbing your target audience’s attention, you can tell them about your company and services you provide. You can provide any information about your company through your SEO articles.
Drive Potential Customers to Your Site
You can include a link to your company’s website in your SEO article so that people will visit it. Once your article is published, it has its own life. People will share it on blogs, social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, or in other articles if they find it interesting. The more people share your article, the more traffic your site will have.
Management of Your Branding Messages
In today’s business world, you cannot control how people view your company. Competitors or former customers can leave negative reviews about your company. The electronic media can give your business an image you do not want. Through SEO articles, you can change the way people think about your business. You can include certain branding messages in your SEO articles to create the image you want.
The Expansion of Your Online Presence
A business without any online presence is less likely to be known by so many people. A website alone is not enough to attract as many customers as you want. SEO articles can help build or create your company’s online presence so that your content will be found by many people. As a result, your company will be known by a lot of people.
SEO articles are a great and inexpensive method to promote your business. You could either write yourself or hire SEO experts. Since writing great SEO articles is a science and an art that requires a lot of knowledge and experience, it is best to outsource them to professionals. Hiring SEO experts is extremely beneficial for you. The experts know exactly how to write a great SEO article that will help your business, and you can focus all your attention on your business.
The IIS Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Toolkit helps Web developers, hosting providers, and Web server administrators to improve their Web site’s relevance in search results by recommending how to make the site content more search engine-friendly. The IIS SEO Toolkit includes the Site Analysis module, the Robots Exclusion module, and the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module, which let you perform detailed analysis and offer recommendations and editing tools for managing your Robots and Sitemaps files.
Download SEO Toolkit
Improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines
The Site Analysis module allows users to analyze local and external Web sites with the purpose of optimizing the site's content, structure, and URLs for search engine crawlers. In addition, the Site Analysis module can be used to discover common problems in the site content that negatively affects the site visitor experience. The Site Analysis tool includes a large set of pre-built reports to analyze the sites compliance with SEO recommendations and to discover problems on the site, such as broken links, duplicate resources, or performance issues. The Site Analysis module also supports building custom queries against the data gathered during crawling.
Control how search engines access and display Web content
The Robots Exclusion module enables Web site owners to manage the robots.txt file from within the IIS Manager interface. This file is used to control the indexing of specified URLs, by disallowing search engine crawlers from accessing them. Users have the choice to view their sites using a physical or a logical hierarchal view; and from within that view, they can choose to disallow specific files or folders of the Web application. In addition, users can manually enter a path or modify a selected path, including wildcards. By using a graphical interface, users benefit from having a clear understanding of what sections of the Web site are disallowed and from avoiding any typing mistakes.
Inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing
The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module enables Web site owners to manage the sitemap files and sitemap indexes on the site, application, and folder level to help keep search engines up to date. The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module allows the most important URLs to be listed and ranked in the sitemap.xml file. In addition, the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module helps to ensure the Sitemap.xml file does not contain any broken links.
Improve the volume and quality of traffic to your Web site from search engines
The Site Analysis module allows users to analyze local and external Web sites with the purpose of optimizing the site's content, structure, and URLs for search engine crawlers. In addition, the Site Analysis module can be used to discover common problems in the site content that negatively affects the site visitor experience. The Site Analysis tool includes a large set of pre-built reports to analyze the sites compliance with SEO recommendations and to discover problems on the site, such as broken links, duplicate resources, or performance issues. The Site Analysis module also supports building custom queries against the data gathered during crawling.
Control how search engines access and display Web content
The Robots Exclusion module enables Web site owners to manage the robots.txt file from within the IIS Manager interface. This file is used to control the indexing of specified URLs, by disallowing search engine crawlers from accessing them. Users have the choice to view their sites using a physical or a logical hierarchal view; and from within that view, they can choose to disallow specific files or folders of the Web application. In addition, users can manually enter a path or modify a selected path, including wildcards. By using a graphical interface, users benefit from having a clear understanding of what sections of the Web site are disallowed and from avoiding any typing mistakes.
Inform search engines about locations that are available for indexing
The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module enables Web site owners to manage the sitemap files and sitemap indexes on the site, application, and folder level to help keep search engines up to date. The Sitemaps and Site Indexes module allows the most important URLs to be listed and ranked in the sitemap.xml file. In addition, the Sitemaps and Site Indexes module helps to ensure the Sitemap.xml file does not contain any broken links.
Site Analysis Features
- Fully featured crawler engine
- Configurable number of concurrent requests to allow users to crawl their Web site without incurring additional processing. This can be configured from 1 to 16 concurrent requests.
- Support for Robots.txt, allowing you to customize the locations where the crawler should analyze and which locations should be ignored.
- Support for Sitemap files allowing you to specify additional locations to be analyzed.
- Support for overriding ‘noindex’ and ‘nofollow’ metatags to allow you to analyze pages to help improve customer experience even when search engines will not process them.
- Configurable limits for analysis, maximum number of URLs to download, and maximum number of kilobytes to download per URL.
- Configurable options for including content from only your directories or the entire site and sub domains.
- View detailed summary of Web site analysis results through a rich dashboard
- Feature rich Query Builder interface that allows you to build custom reports
- Quick access to common tasks
- Display of detailed information for each URL
- View detailed route analysis showing unique routes to better understand the way search engines reach your content
Robots Exclusion Features
- Display of robots content in a friendly user interface
- Support for filtering, grouping, and sorting
- Ability to add ‘disallow’ and ‘allow’ paths using a logical view of your Web site from the result of site analysis processing
- Ability to add sitemap locations
- Display of sitemaps and sitemap index files in a simple user interface
- Support for grouping and sorting
- Ability to add/edit/remove sitemap and sitemap index files
- Ability to add new URL’s to sitemap and sitemap index files using a physical or logical view of your Web site
- Ability to register a sitemap or sitemap index into the robots exclusion file
Pompano Beach, FL based BestSEOCompanies.com has released their September 2012 rankings of the top 50 SEO companies in the United States. The search engine optimization vendors listed are scored based on a variety of data points after a thorough review. The list was created list to help businesses all across the United States make an educated decision when choosing an SEO company. “We want to help businesses make better vendor decisions when it comes to SEO companies”, said Jason Bayless of BestSEOCompanies.com. “I think we are doing a great job of that, but we are always tweaking our criteria to make improvements.”
The Top 20 of the Top 50 SEO Companies of September 2012:
The Top 20 of the Top 50 SEO Companies of September 2012:
- Blueglass
- Distilled
- HigherVisibility
- Acronym
- Bruce Clay
- Icrossing
- Straight North
- Slingshot SEO
- 360i
- SEO.com
- Brick Marketing
- Verticle Measures
- Razorfish
- IProspect
- Webimax
- Internet Marketing Ninjas
- Fathom
- Orange Soda
- Customer Magnetism
- Internet Marketing Inc
About the SEO Company Ranking Criteria:
Each SEO Firm is evaluated on several different criteria and provided a score. Some of the criteria includes the current rankings of 3 different SEO company rating services, the on-page quality score the agency’s homepage, a backlink analysis of the firm’s website, a visibility score of how well the firm ranks for the keywords that they target, the quality of the clients serviced, media mentions, mystery shopping, and how active they are in the SEO community. That would include blogging and conference appearances.
About BestSEOCompanies.com:
There are thousands of SEO companies in the United States but it can be hard to determine the quality of a company that you have never heard of. With the type of investment that usually comes with an SEO campaign, it is important to select the right vendor the first time. For this reason BestSEOCompanies.com was launched to be the go to resource for business owners looking to research SEO companies so that they can make an educated decision.
Each SEO Firm is evaluated on several different criteria and provided a score. Some of the criteria includes the current rankings of 3 different SEO company rating services, the on-page quality score the agency’s homepage, a backlink analysis of the firm’s website, a visibility score of how well the firm ranks for the keywords that they target, the quality of the clients serviced, media mentions, mystery shopping, and how active they are in the SEO community. That would include blogging and conference appearances.
About BestSEOCompanies.com:
There are thousands of SEO companies in the United States but it can be hard to determine the quality of a company that you have never heard of. With the type of investment that usually comes with an SEO campaign, it is important to select the right vendor the first time. For this reason BestSEOCompanies.com was launched to be the go to resource for business owners looking to research SEO companies so that they can make an educated decision.