© SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Glenn Jones on Microformats and SEO – BrightonSEO
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GoDaddy sure is making the headlines these days. Though people are mainly incensed about the fickleness of their stance on the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), what has been playing over and over in my head is Joost deValk’s post …
GoDaddy SOPA Backlash: Karma from Bad Link Practices? was originally posted on the Phoenixrealm SEO Blog by Gary Cottam.
You can connect with Gary on Google+, on Twitter @garycottam, or follow these links to find out more about Doublespark SEO or Doublespark Web Design.
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The following is a review of Shoeboxed.com, a receipt scanning and business card scanning service. To be honest keeping receipts, accounting, or any book keeping work is pretty much something I hate. I can’t tell you how many times I’d be talking with the accountant, she’d ask for some receipt I wouldn’t have, and I’d [...]
This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.
Receipt Scanning Software & Business Card Scanning Software – Shoeboxed review
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The type of SEO I help my clients do and promote to you using this blog is often labeled white hat SEO because it stays within Google's and other search engines guidelines. Other SEO's don't care about Google's guidelines as much and do what's called "black hat SEO". Far too often though, black hat SEO [...]
The ethics of SEO is a post by Joost de Valk on Yoast - Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don't want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!
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Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
More Affiliate Marketing Advice, Tips, and Techniques
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Bing refreshed their webmaster tools offering & now allows you to look up link data for 3rd party sites.
We recently interviewed Bing's Duane Forrester about the new SEO tools & their product roadmap.
Here is a screenshot of their new link explorer, but I highly recommend setting up an account and checking it out firsthand.
For a long time Yahoo! provided great link data, but most other search engines were more reserved with sharing link data for competing sites. What were some of the driving forces behind Bing opening up on this front?
Bing values the power of strong partnerships as one way to spur innovation and deliver compelling experiences for our users. For any partnership to be effective, remaining as transparent as possible is critical, including those we forge with agency and publisher partners. Sharing link information was something very clearly asked for by tool users, so after doing the internal work to see if we could provide the information, it was an easy decision to build this tool when the answer came back positive. You wanted it, we had it and could share it. Done.
As a search engine your web index is much much larger than most SEO tools. On Twitter Rand mentioned that the index size of Bing's new Link Explorer was fairly comparable to Open Site Explorer. Is the link data offered in the tool a select slice of the index? Were you trying to highlight the highest quality link sources for each site?
We see the entire index, or at least "can" see the entire index and link ecosystem. We?re limited to the actual number we can show at any given time, however.
Currently it appears as though the tool lists link source URLs & page titles. Will the tool also add anchor text listings at some point?
On the list ? sometimes we run into data sourcing issues, so when we hit those walls, it takes us longer to add features. Bing WMT pulls data from all the sources available within Bing Search, and sometimes those have limits imposed for other reasons. In those cases, we must abide by those rules or seek to influence changes to increase our own access/capacities. A search engine is a complex thing it turns out? J
There are filters for "anchor text" and "additional query." What are the differences between these filters?
Anchor Text is pretty clear to most SEOs. "Additional Query" allows you to look for, as an example, a page with "N" text appearing on it. So text not just as "anchor text", but simply appearing on the page.
Currently if I search for "car" I believe it will match pages that have something like "carson" on it. In the future will there be a way to search for an exact word without extra characters?
I?m going to split this answer. Users can enable ?Strict? filtering to only see ?cars? data by selecting the ?Strict? box. To your point, however, this is what some of our tools are Beta. We will continually refine them as time goes on, adding features folks find useful.
Will you guys also offer TLD-based filters at some point?
First time anyone's mentioned it, so I?ll add this to our list for consideration.
A few years ago my wife was at a PPC seminar where a Bing representative stated that the keyword search data provided in the tools matched your internal data. Is this still the case?
Bing Advertising is completely separate from Webmaster Tools. I?m not sure if that rep was meaning data within the adCenter tools matches data or what. Bing WMT does import CPC data to showcase alongside keywords which sent traffic to your site. That data matches as we pull direct from adCenter. The data we show through our tools comes direct from Bing Search, so that?s a match if this is what you?re referring to.
Bing's Webmaster tools offers an API with keyword research & link data. Bing's Ad Intelligence is easily one of my 3 favorite SEO tools. Will Bing eventually offer a similar SEO-oriented plugin for Excel?
No plans on the roadmap for an Excel plugin.
At SMX Derrick Connell suggested that there was a relevancy perception gap perhaps due to branding. What are some of the features people should try or things they should search for that really highlight where Bing is much stronger than competing services?
Without doubt people should be logging in and using the Facebook integration when searching. This feature is tremendously helpful when you?re researching something, for example, as you can reach out directly to friends for input during your research process. While searching, keep your eyes open for the caret that indicates there is more data about a specific result. Hovering over that activates the ?snapshot? showing the richer experience we have for that result. Businesses need to make sure they focus on social and managing it properly. It?s not going away and those who lag will find themselves facing stiff, new competition from those getting social right. Businesses also need to get moving adopting rich snippets on their sites. This data helps us provide the deeper experiences the new consumer interface is capable of in some cases.
You have wrote a couple books & done a significant amount of offline marketing. One big trend that has been highlighted for years and years is everything moving online, but as search advances do you see offline marketing as becoming an important point of differentiation for many online plays?
In a way yes. In fact, with the simplification of SEO via tools like our own and many others, more and more businesses can get things done to a level on their own. SEO will eventually become a common marketing tactic, and when that hits, we?re right back to a more traditional view of marketing: where all tactics are brought to bear to sell a product or service. Think of this?email marketing is still one of the single best converting forms of marketing in existence. Yet so many businesses focus on SEO (drive new traffic!) instead of email (work with current, proven shoppers!).
In fact, neither alone is the "best" strategy for most online businesses. It?s a blend of everything. Social happens either with you or without you. You can influence it, and by participating, the signals the engines see change. We can see those changes and it helps us understand if a searcher might or might not have a good experience with you. That can influence (when combined with a ton of other factors, obviously) how we rank you. Everything is connected today. Complex? Sure, but back in the day marketers faced similar complexity with their own programs. Just a new "complex" for us today. More in the mix to manage.
What is the best part about being an SEO who also works for a search engine?
On Wednesday, June 6th at 10AM PST, I was part of the team that brought a new level of tools forward, resetting expectations around what Webmaster Tools should deliver to users. Easily one of the proudest moments of my life was that release. While I?m an SEO and I work for the engine, the PM and Lead Engineer on the WMT product are also SEOs. ;) To say Bing is investing in building the partnership with SEOs is no mere boast. Great tools like this happen because the people building them live the life of the user.
What is the hardest part about being an SEO who also works for a search engine?
Still so few people around me that speak this language. The main difficulty is in trying to understand the sheer scope of search. Because everything you thought you knew as an SEO take son an entirely different dimension when you?re inside the engine. Imagine taking every SEO conversation and viewing it through a prism. So many more things to consider.
And, finally, nothing against Matt here, but why are dogs so much better than cats?
1 ? they listen to you and execute commands like a soldier
2 ? generally, they don?t crap in your house
3 ? you can have a genuine conversation with a dog
4 ? one of my dogs drives
5 ? when was the last time your cat fetched anything for you?
6 ? your dog might look at you funny, but won?t hiss at you
7 ? guard cat? Hardly? you?d be better off with peacocks in the yard.
8 ? dogs make great alarm clocks
9 ? even YOU know you look strange walking your cat on a leash?
10 ? dogs inspire you to be a better person
-----
Thanks for the interview Duane & the great new tools. :)
Duane also did a video review of their new tools on SEOmoz, which highlights how they show rank & traffic data on a per keyword & per page basis. To learn more about Bing, subscribe to their search blog & their webmaster central blog. Duane also shares SEO information on Twitter @DuaneForrester & via his personal blog.
Source: http://www.seobook.com/bing-offers-free-link-graph
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URLs that return 404 pages have always been a source of headache for webmasters. This is especially true for websites that have tons of pages, since the chances of getting 404 errors increase this way.
The good thing though is …
Dealing with 404 Pages was originally posted on the Phoenixrealm SEO Blog by Gary Cottam.
You can connect with Gary on Google+, on Twitter @garycottam, or follow these links to find out more about Doublespark SEO or Doublespark Web Design.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/phoenixrealm/UynW/~3/SIO9OcHelMg/
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Based on feedback we get from time to time, there seems to be a growing interest in the area of setting up and running a local SEO business.
In addition to building local SEO tools, Whitespark also offers local SEO services. We recently reviewed Darren's Local Citation Finder, which is a must-have for any local SEO, and today he was kind enough to answer some questions on the local SEO market as a whole as well as specific strategies he recommends (and uses for his clients).
1. What are you advising your clients to do and how are you adjusting your local seo strategy in the wake of the latest change to Google Places (IE Google+ Local)?
Get active on Google+. You want to start posting content on Google+, and also start circling friends, family, influencers, and other businesses AS YOUR BUSINESS on Google+. If you?re engaging them, they?ll engage with your business and circle you back, +1 your content, share your content, etc. Use your existing Google+ business page if you already have one, as this business page will eventually merge with your Google+ Local page. If you don?t have one yet, then get one here. To use Google+ as a page, look for the dropdown under your photo. Also, now that Google+ Local pages are indexed, it?s a good idea to link to your Google+ Local page. There was no value in linking to the old place pages because they weren?t indexed.
2. A recent WSJ Article outlines an upcoming change to how Google will be interacting with SMB's. It appears to be tying back to G+ (of course) but also presenting a unified dashboard that SMB's can use to interact with all Google products. When you look at the local SEO landscape, how do you present to clients as the importance of singular keyword rankings become less and less important in the face of a more holistic, unified online marketing campaign?
It?s tough because the typical SMB often comes to you with the goal of ranking for particular keywords and doesn?t see the bigger picture. So, when we present to clients we make sure to discuss all the details of our local SEO work:
We?re focused on content strategy these days and try to educate our clients from the start about what will be involved. That means getting a blog installed on their site if they don?t already have one and setting up a schedule of weekly blog posts.
There are plenty of quality writers out there that will write posts at a reasonable price for the business if they don?t have time. We brainstorm topic ideas with our clients, and then sort them into ?our blog? and ?guest posts?.
We then build out lists of prospects using our sister tool, the Link Prospector, and use Buzzstream to manage our outreach and relationship building. We work on creative ideas that will push our clients beyond what their competition is doing.
For example, for one of our legal clients, we?re creating a kinetic typography video (what?s that? ) about a new law being passed that will mean immediate loss of your license if you get charged with a DUI. The implications of this new law are serious: loss of job, family troubles due to financial strain, etc.
We?ll be posting it to our blog, doing a press release, pushing it through social, and outreaching to all the news agencies and civilian bloggers in the province. Expecting this to drive some great brand mentions and links for our client. We?re always touching base with our clients to learn about up and coming news in their business and industry that we can leverage with content like this.
If a client isn?t able to invest some time to work with us on content, and providing us with the info we need, we try to assess that as early as possible and not take them on, or end the relationship. It must be collaborative or we?ll have a hard time getting the results, and that frustrates us and the client.
3. Do you think Google's push to centralize these offers for SMB's will actually help local SEO/marketing companies (like yours)? It seems to me that it would, it seems like things will be easier to manage and report on. While Google will be able to make inroads in this market, I still believe that many local SMB's will just be more apt to search for a reputable provider that can manage all this stuff for them. SMB's love time-savings...What do you think?
I don?t know if it will make much difference. The typical SMB client doesn?t have much knowledge about online marketing.
They would be just as lost in a unified dashboard as they are in the current setup, and will look to bring in a consultant to help. As far as reporting goes, we?ll have to see what that unified dashboard provides. If it?s anything like the useless stats in the current Google Places dashboard, I won?t be very excited about it.
4. Local, blended, pack, whatever rankings can be difficult to deal with if you are not the beneficiary of a nearby centroid. Can you walk us through how you deal with this both at the proposal level (quote multiple services, quote more keywords, etc) and in practice?
What are some ways around being an outlier to the centroid of the more highly searched areas? Fortunately, Google has recently dialed back the importance of the centroid. I only bring it up with new prospects if they are way out on the outskirts of the city (can be a bit challenging to overcome), or in a suburb and want to rank in the big city (near impossible to overcome unless they open a new location in the city).
To overcome centroid bias you need an order magnitude more citations, links, and reviews. If your competitors have 50 citations, get 150. If your competitors have 30 reviews, get 100. When you look at cases where a business is way outside of the centroid and ranking well, it?s typically a numbers game like this.
Be sure to also focus on acquiring plenty of locally relevant links and citations from authority sites, but I?d have the same recommendation for any local campaign, not just ones where you?re working to overcome centroid bias.
5. Given the increased complexity of local SEO, and local online ads in general, how are you handling the quoting process these days? Custom proposals for everyone? Packages for some? Do you find, on average, better overall success (ROI and retention) with one method or the other?
I have a pretty standard, all encompassing, package that I use for all clients. If the client is in an �ultra-competitive market, I?ll charge more, but we do pretty much the same work for all our clients and just scale it up based on how competitive it is.
6. How deep do you get into the client's business? Do you get into managing SEO, PPC, online ad buys, email marketing, offline advertising, and so on?
Typically we just do straight SEO. Specifically, local seo. That?s more than enough to deal with right now, and it?s what I love doing. I?m not that interested in anything other than local.
7. Citations are important but what about social stuff and reviews? How do you help clients set up and stick to an ongoing social engagement and how do you get them to be all over the reviews (obtaining reviews, following up on them, and so on)?
Reviews are extremely important and we put together a review acquisition strategy for each client. We get one of Phil Rozek?s Review Handouts for each client. This is something that the business can email or print and give to each customer that provides easy step-by-step instructions on how to leave a review. He?s updating it for the new Google+ Local review process. We also encourage our clients to mix up the places they request reviews from.
Get some on Google, some on Insiderpages, some on Yelp, etc. We always research where the competition are getting reviews and base our recommendations on that. I think keywords in the reviews are a big ranking factor. We ask our clients to tell their customers to mention the service they had completed when posting the review.
Social, well, I don?t push too hard on it. Certainly, the clients that are engaged in it will reap the benefits, but so many small businesses are too busy running their business to bother with it. Looking at David Mihm?s Local Search Ranking Factors, the local SEO experts surveyed don?t put a lot of stock into social factors. David?s just about to release the 2012 version and i would expect to see the same.
8. I know there's always a desire for one to find some magic pill for their problems, and that's no different in the local SEO market. Sometimes though, there are no "secrets" and it's more about leverage, quality of work, and consistency. Let's close it out by giving folks some "must-have" tips on running a local SEO campaign, or company, in the current local SEO climate:
In local, my number one recommendation is to do a citation audit and clean up job. It?s horribly painful work trying to find all the places where your name, address, and phone number are incorrect, but like you noted, there are no short cuts.
Put in the hard work on this one and it will pay dividends. I?ve seen many cases where you analyze the top ranking competition and the business with the best on-page optimization, Place page optimization, citations, links, & reviews is not ranking as well as they should, and when you dig a little deeper it?s because of messy NAP data all over the place.
Consistent NAP is important to your ?trust score? in local. If Google is getting conflicting data about your business from multiple sources, it lowers its trust in your data. I?ll be doing a post on the Whitespark blog soon about how we do citation audits. Also, keywords in reviews seem to be very helpful to rankings. See what I said about this above.
Also, citations from city and industry specific sites really help associate your business with the keywords you?re going after. In our experience, local rankings take off after we submit to 30 or 40 of these. For example, for a lawyer in Chicago, get citations on sites like:
Thanks Darren!Source: http://www.seobook.com/darren-shaw-whitespark-local-seo
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© SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Google’s ‘Over Optimisation’ Algorithm Update – Coming Soon!
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Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Tips and Techniques for Selling Training on Your Blog
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© SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Web Evolution and The Future Of SEO – Brighton SEO
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Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
Fresh Ways to Handle Blog Criticism
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Source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/06/youtubes-top-partner-channels-performing-well.html
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Why You CAN?T Hire a Quality Writer on Fiverr
Post from: Quality SEO Services & Link Building Services
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Source: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2012/06/hitwise-says-google-search-share-down.html
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© SEOptimise - Download our free business guide to blogging whitepaper and sign-up for the SEOptimise monthly newsletter. Post Penguin Recovery: Link Removal Strategy for Back Link Profile Clean Ups
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Source: http://www.getelastic.com/hackers-gonna-hack-virtual-fitting-room-with-xbox-kinect/
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Based on feedback we get from time to time, there seems to be a growing interest in the area of setting up and running a local SEO business.
In addition to building local SEO tools, Whitespark also offers local SEO services. We recently reviewed Darren's Local Citation Finder, which is a must-have for any local SEO, and today he was kind enough to answer some questions on the local SEO market as a whole as well as specific strategies he recommends (and uses for his clients).
1. What are you advising your clients to do and how are you adjusting your local seo strategy in the wake of the latest change to Google Places (IE Google+ Local)?
Get active on Google+. You want to start posting content on Google+, and also start circling friends, family, influencers, and other businesses AS YOUR BUSINESS on Google+. If you?re engaging them, they?ll engage with your business and circle you back, +1 your content, share your content, etc. Use your existing Google+ business page if you already have one, as this business page will eventually merge with your Google+ Local page. If you don?t have one yet, then get one here. To use Google+ as a page, look for the dropdown under your photo. Also, now that Google+ Local pages are indexed, it?s a good idea to link to your Google+ Local page. There was no value in linking to the old place pages because they weren?t indexed.
2. A recent WSJ Article outlines an upcoming change to how Google will be interacting with SMB's. It appears to be tying back to G+ (of course) but also presenting a unified dashboard that SMB's can use to interact with all Google products. When you look at the local SEO landscape, how do you present to clients as the importance of singular keyword rankings become less and less important in the face of a more holistic, unified online marketing campaign?
It?s tough because the typical SMB often comes to you with the goal of ranking for particular keywords and doesn?t see the bigger picture. So, when we present to clients we make sure to discuss all the details of our local SEO work:
We?re focused on content strategy these days and try to educate our clients from the start about what will be involved. That means getting a blog installed on their site if they don?t already have one and setting up a schedule of weekly blog posts.
There are plenty of quality writers out there that will write posts at a reasonable price for the business if they don?t have time. We brainstorm topic ideas with our clients, and then sort them into ?our blog? and ?guest posts?.
We then build out lists of prospects using our sister tool, the Link Prospector, and use Buzzstream to manage our outreach and relationship building. We work on creative ideas that will push our clients beyond what their competition is doing.
For example, for one of our legal clients, we?re creating a kinetic typography video (what?s that? ) about a new law being passed that will mean immediate loss of your license if you get charged with a DUI. The implications of this new law are serious: loss of job, family troubles due to financial strain, etc.
We?ll be posting it to our blog, doing a press release, pushing it through social, and outreaching to all the news agencies and civilian bloggers in the province. Expecting this to drive some great brand mentions and links for our client. We?re always touching base with our clients to learn about up and coming news in their business and industry that we can leverage with content like this.
If a client isn?t able to invest some time to work with us on content, and providing us with the info we need, we try to assess that as early as possible and not take them on, or end the relationship. It must be collaborative or we?ll have a hard time getting the results, and that frustrates us and the client.
3. Do you think Google's push to centralize these offers for SMB's will actually help local SEO/marketing companies (like yours)? It seems to me that it would, it seems like things will be easier to manage and report on. While Google will be able to make inroads in this market, I still believe that many local SMB's will just be more apt to search for a reputable provider that can manage all this stuff for them. SMB's love time-savings...What do you think?
I don?t know if it will make much difference. The typical SMB client doesn?t have much knowledge about online marketing.
They would be just as lost in a unified dashboard as they are in the current setup, and will look to bring in a consultant to help. As far as reporting goes, we?ll have to see what that unified dashboard provides. If it?s anything like the useless stats in the current Google Places dashboard, I won?t be very excited about it.
4. Local, blended, pack, whatever rankings can be difficult to deal with if you are not the beneficiary of a nearby centroid. Can you walk us through how you deal with this both at the proposal level (quote multiple services, quote more keywords, etc) and in practice?
What are some ways around being an outlier to the centroid of the more highly searched areas? Fortunately, Google has recently dialed back the importance of the centroid. I only bring it up with new prospects if they are way out on the outskirts of the city (can be a bit challenging to overcome), or in a suburb and want to rank in the big city (near impossible to overcome unless they open a new location in the city).
To overcome centroid bias you need an order magnitude more citations, links, and reviews. If your competitors have 50 citations, get 150. If your competitors have 30 reviews, get 100. When you look at cases where a business is way outside of the centroid and ranking well, it?s typically a numbers game like this.
Be sure to also focus on acquiring plenty of locally relevant links and citations from authority sites, but I?d have the same recommendation for any local campaign, not just ones where you?re working to overcome centroid bias.
5. Given the increased complexity of local SEO, and local online ads in general, how are you handling the quoting process these days? Custom proposals for everyone? Packages for some? Do you find, on average, better overall success (ROI and retention) with one method or the other?
I have a pretty standard, all encompassing, package that I use for all clients. If the client is in an �ultra-competitive market, I?ll charge more, but we do pretty much the same work for all our clients and just scale it up based on how competitive it is.
6. How deep do you get into the client's business? Do you get into managing SEO, PPC, online ad buys, email marketing, offline advertising, and so on?
Typically we just do straight SEO. Specifically, local seo. That?s more than enough to deal with right now, and it?s what I love doing. I?m not that interested in anything other than local.
7. Citations are important but what about social stuff and reviews? How do you help clients set up and stick to an ongoing social engagement and how do you get them to be all over the reviews (obtaining reviews, following up on them, and so on)?
Reviews are extremely important and we put together a review acquisition strategy for each client. We get one of Phil Rozek?s Review Handouts for each client. This is something that the business can email or print and give to each customer that provides easy step-by-step instructions on how to leave a review. He?s updating it for the new Google+ Local review process. We also encourage our clients to mix up the places they request reviews from.
Get some on Google, some on Insiderpages, some on Yelp, etc. We always research where the competition are getting reviews and base our recommendations on that. I think keywords in the reviews are a big ranking factor. We ask our clients to tell their customers to mention the service they had completed when posting the review.
Social, well, I don?t push too hard on it. Certainly, the clients that are engaged in it will reap the benefits, but so many small businesses are too busy running their business to bother with it. Looking at David Mihm?s Local Search Ranking Factors, the local SEO experts surveyed don?t put a lot of stock into social factors. David?s just about to release the 2012 version and i would expect to see the same.
8. I know there's always a desire for one to find some magic pill for their problems, and that's no different in the local SEO market. Sometimes though, there are no "secrets" and it's more about leverage, quality of work, and consistency. Let's close it out by giving folks some "must-have" tips on running a local SEO campaign, or company, in the current local SEO climate:
In local, my number one recommendation is to do a citation audit and clean up job. It?s horribly painful work trying to find all the places where your name, address, and phone number are incorrect, but like you noted, there are no short cuts.
Put in the hard work on this one and it will pay dividends. I?ve seen many cases where you analyze the top ranking competition and the business with the best on-page optimization, Place page optimization, citations, links, & reviews is not ranking as well as they should, and when you dig a little deeper it?s because of messy NAP data all over the place.
Consistent NAP is important to your ?trust score? in local. If Google is getting conflicting data about your business from multiple sources, it lowers its trust in your data. I?ll be doing a post on the Whitespark blog soon about how we do citation audits. Also, keywords in reviews seem to be very helpful to rankings. See what I said about this above.
Also, citations from city and industry specific sites really help associate your business with the keywords you?re going after. In our experience, local rankings take off after we submit to 30 or 40 of these. For example, for a lawyer in Chicago, get citations on sites like:
Thanks Darren!Source: http://www.seobook.com/darren-shaw-whitespark-local-seo
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