Search Engine Optimization

Does your current SEO campaign have lackluster results?  If you’d like to figure out what you’re doing wrong and how you can improve your campaign’s performance, carrying out an SEO audit can be very helpful.  During an SEO audit, you’ll analyze, measure, and report on various factors that affect your search engine ranking, so you can determine what areas of your site need improvement from an SEO standpoint.

During an SEO audit, technical, on-page, and off-page elements of your website are evaluated.  The following are key areas that must be assessed and tweaked during your website’s SEO audit in order for it to be fruitful.

Homepage

The first thing you have to do in an SEO audit is visit the primary URL of your website.  What is your first impression of the homepage?  Does it seem trustworthy?  Write down your initial thoughts because more likely than not, casual browsers will have a similar reaction when they land on the homepage.  If you’re having a hard time looking at your website from an objective point of view, get a friend to look at your homepage and give you an honest opinion.

In addition, make sure that the title tag on the homepage is effective and improve it if it isn’t.  A title tag should be highly descriptive and contain target keywords.  Changing the title tag is easy, and it’s important because title tags directly affect rankings.  After tweaking the homepage’s title tag, also make sure that other pages of your website have unique title tags.

Links and Authority

In order to gauge your website’s level of authority, you must find out how many backlinks it has and whether those backlinks are of good quality.  Additionally, determine if the backlinks have good anchor text and if they come from several different domains or just a few domains.  Once you evaluate a website’s backlinks, compare them with the backlinks of competing websites.

If you want to get more backlinks, you should blog, use social media platforms, get a Wikipedia listing, get a listing in DMOZ and Yahoo directories, and get a Google Places page.  It’s also important to do plenty of internal linking with good anchor text.  Internal linking not only improves your website’s search engine rankings, it also makes your site more user-friendly.

Keywords

Keywords are fundamental to your website’s SEO campaign.  During an SEO audit, check the rankings of your website for target keywords and compare them with those of the competition.  Make sure that your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, image alt text, internal links, URLs, headings, and body text all contain target keywords.  In addition, access your analytics program to determine what other keywords are worth targeting.

Content

Make sure that your website’s content is clear, concise, and easy to read.  If your content isn’t well-written and helpful, website visitors won’t stick around!  Furthermore, make sure that the content on each page of your site is highly unique and optimized for target keywords.  The content should not be within an image, flash, or frame if you want it to be indexed by the search engines.  Also, the content pages of your website should have URLs that are short, easy to remember, and contain target keywords.

Search Engine Inclusion

Last but certainly not least, find out how the search engines react to the content on your website by searching for your website’s URL on a major search engine like Google.  Your website should appear as the first result (unless it’s brand new), so if it doesn’t show up, your website may not be indexed.

If your site isn’t indexed, find out what the problem is as soon as possible, so it can be resolved.  Next, find out exactly how many pages of your site are indexed by Google or another major search engine by typing site: www.example.com in the search box.  The number of pages indexed and the number of pages of your website should match.

So, what are you waiting for?  If you’re going to perform any SEO work, doing an SEO audit of your website is essential.  In order to perform a comprehensive SEO audit, create a checklist and take notes as you go through it. Incorporate the above elements into your checklist and your SEO audit will be off to a strong start!

User generated content is content that is created by the users of a website.  It includes thumbs up/down features, star ratings, comments, blogs, and reviews.  An increasing number of websites welcome user generated content because it has been proven to attract more website visitors and increase conversion rates.  Even large retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart incorporate user generated content into their online marketing strategy.

Are you still on the fence about user generated content?  Giving your customers a voice in your own online territory may seem like brand suicide, but it’s actually quite the opposite.  Here are the top 5 benefits that you can squeeze out of user generated content.

1. Increases long-tail organic search traffic

When you have dozens of reviews on each page of your website and they include long-tail keywords referring to the products you sell, you’ll start to rank for a wider variety of terms.  Essentially, you’ll be outsourcing keyword research and content optimization to your customers for free!

You may even rank for some long-tail keywords that you hadn’t considered before.  For example, your customers might abbreviate product names in ways that you weren’t aware of, so you can take advantage of rankings for unexpected long-tail keywords through them.

2. Keeps content fresh and unique

The search engines love websites that are regularly updated with fresh, new content.  You can ensure that your website is constantly updated by allowing visitors to submit user generated content.

3. Boosts traffic levels

When you allow visitors to submit user generated content on your website, it helps you increase traffic because people feel like they are participants rather than mere spectators.  Sites that are rich with user generated content tend to have a stronger sense of community, and the community is what keeps website visitors coming back for more.

4. Instills confidence in prospects

When people shop online, they guard their wallets fiercely because they are afraid of being ripped off.  User generated content allows you to ease prospective customers’ doubts because it proves that real people have bought from you before and that you allow them to give their unbiased opinions, whether they favor your business or not.  Some companies are afraid of allowing user generated content on their websites because they think that people will leave negative reviews and it will affect sales.  But most consumers have nothing for respect for companies that allow people to leave honest reviews on their websites because it shows that the company is ethical, honest, and trustworthy.

5. Opportunities to make improvements based on feedback from your customers and prospects

Websites that allow visitors to submit user generated content keep the channels of communication open between them and their customers and are therefore able to make regular improvements to their services and offerings.  If you know exactly what people like and don’t like about your website, you can tweak features based on their feedback and get new ideas for products and services to offer.  So, ultimately, user generated content helps you better serve your target customers as well as stay on top of the competition.

Link building takes time, patience, and a thick skin because many of your requests for links are likely to be rejected.  To ensure a higher return on investment on the time you spend building links, it’s essential to target the right people.  You’ll improve your link building conversion rate if you ask leaders in your industry for links because they’re obviously interested in your niche and have a large following, which could lead to even more backlinks for your website.

Start out by brainstorming what kind of people would be interested in your website’s content and where they hang out online.  If you have a small local business, find influential people in your local area who could give you links.  You can do this by using the advanced search function on Twitter and looking for influential users in your local area.  You can also search for websites in local directories and then contact them to let them know about your website.

Find Leaders in Your Industry on Forums and Twitter

Although Twitter and forums may not provide worthwhile links themselves, they can serve as effective tools to help you find influential people in your industry.  When you connect with leaders in your niche on forums and on Twitter, they may eventually spread the word about you and help your website get more links.  To find influential people in your industry on Twitter, search for your target keywords using the WeFollow tool.  WeFollow will provide you with a list of Twitter users in your industry with the largest followings.

In order to build a relationship with these influential Twitter users, pay attention to what type of content they usually link to, share their content with your followers, and interact with them on a regular basis.  Once you build a rapport with leaders in your niche, you can start sending links to your content to them in order to get their opinion and get them to link to you.

If you want to find influential people in your industry through forums, look for active forums in your niche, and then find out who the most active contributors and moderators are.  You can do this quickly by looking at the list of “top contributors.”  After you find the most active users, interact with them within the forums and check out the links in the signature section of their profiles so you can connect with them on other social networking sites.

Research, Research, Research

The key to maximizing the results of your link building campaign is research.  Hang out online, determine who the influencers are in your industry, and then study what kind of content they link to before you jump into the conversation.  Once you familiarize yourself with the territory, you’ll be in a better position to provide the influencers with the kind of content they’d be enticed to share with their audience.  Just remember that having killer content is imperative because no matter how much you promote your stuff, your efforts will be fruitless unless your content packs a punch and sparks the interest of leaders in your niche.

Creating linkbait is a natural, effective way to build quality backlinks to your site.  Linkbait generally consists of a controversial article, video, or unique tool that attracts tons of links that typically increase in value over time.  Unlike with other types of links, such as paid links, you normally don’t have to worry about the massive devaluing of linkbait.  Creating and promoting linkbait, however, is difficult.  It’s not easy to create a post that many people will be compelled to link to and then get your post noticed by the right people.

Common Types of Linkbait

A common type of linkbait is a single killer article or a series of useful articles.  If writing isn’t your forte, hire a professional writer to write your linkbait article for you.  Find a writer who’s passionate about your niche if you want your linkbait campaign to be successful.  Promotion is important, but content is everything.  Anything humorous, controversial, or sexy tends to do well on the interwebs.  Breaking news is another effective way to generate a slew of links.

Creating a useful tool is another way to attract links to your site.  For example, you could hire a developer to build a WordPress plug-in and then allow people to download the plug-in for free on your site.  Hiring a skilled developer isn’t cheap, but having a plug-in on your site will allow you to drive a significant amount of traffic to it over time.  And every time people share information about your plug-in on their websites, you’ll get links back to your site.

Study Your Competitors’ Links and Then Decide on Your Content’s Angle

Prior to creating your linkbait, check out your competitors’ links and see what type of content people are linking to the most.  This should give you a good idea of what type of content is effective and what people in your niche are interested in seeing.  Determine what it is that you can add to the conversation, and then create linkbait based on that information.  Also, when you’re checking out your competitors’ links, find out which bloggers and websites are linking to them so you can ask those same people for links down the line.

How to Promote Your Linkbait

Start out by trying to get some links from bloggers and webmasters you know.  Then, pitch influential bloggers in your niche by sending them a quick note about why you think your post would benefit their readers.  You should also email the content to your friends and colleagues and encourage them to share it with their networks.  And last but not least, submit your linkbait to social voting sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.

Just keep in mind that no matter how many hours you spend creating your linkbait or how much you pay someone to create it for you, there’s no guarantee that it’ll pan out.  Online audiences are a tricky bunch, so your attempt at creating linkbait isn’t guaranteed to work.  But for the most part, creating quality content is a worthwhile endeavor.  Even if it doesn’t give you immediate results, it’s bound to pay off later, because the more attention and social proof you generate over time, the more people will take notice of your fantastic content.  Having a track record of creating high quality content is exactly what you need in order to attract valuable links and build a strong online presence over time.

You probably understand the importance of building backlinks to your website.  The problem is that you may not have time to build links on your own or know how to do it.  Managing and building links is a challenging and time-consuming process, especially if you’re new to it.  But link building is essential to your website’s success, so whether you learn the ropes and do it yourself or hire an experienced link builder to do it for you, you have to invest time and/or money in the link building process.  If you decide that hiring someone to build links for you is the best bet, here are 5 traits you should look out for when researching candidates.

1. Excellent communication skills

Having excellent oral and written communication skills is vital for professional link builders since they have to spend so much time communicating with others.  It also helps to be a natural when it comes to pitching people, building rapport, and maintaining relationships with them.

2. Well-organized

Link building requires tons of research and tracking, so being organized is an absolute must.  Link builders must keep track of link requests they’ve made as well as links they’ve obtained.  Ensuring that your link builder tracks all link requests is essential if you want to know exactly how much value you’re getting for the price you pay.

3. Honest

Make sure that the link builder you hire is honest about how he gets links.  Does he employ only white hat techniques, or do the search engines frown upon some of the link building tactics that he uses?  Ask him how he plans to build links for your site and whether he can provide you with references.  Be wary of link builders who cannot produce a list of their previous clients.

4. Good time management skills

Many business owners decide to hire a link builder because it is so time-consuming.  To ensure that your link building campaign is successful, you must hire a link building specialist with top-notch time management skills.  Find out how many other clients the link builder will be working with at the same time and how much time he will devote to working on your site.  A professional link builder must be able to manage your link building campaign efficiently along with others.

5. Creative and resourceful

A savvy link builder does more than send generic link requests to website owners.  In order to stay on top of the game, a link builder must be creative, innovative, and resourceful.  The best link builders see opportunity where others don’t and aren’t afraid to push the envelope.  Link builders should also be willing to personalize all of the link requests they send out to maximize results.  The links that are worth getting aren’t easy to obtain, so link builders have to be resourceful in order to succeed.

Are you ready to hire a link builder to improve your site’s search engine ranking and ramp up your online marketing efforts?  Keep the above criteria in mind when interviewing candidates, and settle for someone who has both the right attitude and a proven track record of success.