Search Engine Optimization

Over two weeks ago, Google launched what is now known as the Penguin Update, an algorithm update that was designed to fight spam in Google’s search engine results. However, many legitimate websites have been hit hard by the Penguin Update, most likely because the SEO companies they hired to improve their search engine rankings utilized spammy SEO techniques or over-optimized their sites. Many businesses have been devastated by the loss of traffic this update has caused them. According to Google, the update has been a success from their standpoint, so there will be no pushing back.

In the past, if you spammed Google and your site got penalized, you could file a reconsideration request. Google has specifically stated that those hit by the Penguin Update cannot file a reconsideration request, but if they clean up the spam, their sites should recover naturally.

The main reason that a lot of sites have been hit by the Penguin update seems to be bad linking practices, such as poor quality reciprocal linking and buying links from shady linking networks, such as the private blog networks that were recently de-indexed. If you start to clean things up now, you can expect to see your rankings improve when the next Penguin update is released.

Cleaning up the Spam

You’ll know your site was hit by the Penguin Update if your site’s traffic levels dropped on April 24. Take a long, hard look at your site to start. Do a full website audit, so you can uncover any potential problems that could have caused your site to be hit by the Penguin Update. On-page factors to look for include keyword stuffing, duplicate content, slow speed, malware, and a lack of fresh content. When it comes to off-page SEO, make sure that you have plenty of niche backlinks from quality websites and that people are talking about your site in social media and blogs. You can use webmaster tools to find unwanted backlinks from questionable, low PR sites.

Clean up the spam by getting rid of bad links and on-page spam you know you’re responsible for. Then, when the next Penguin Update comes along, see if your site recovers. If it doesn’t, do some more cleaning up or consider starting fresh with a new website. Google’s Matt Cutts has stated publicly that some websites will not be able to recover from the update and will have to start anew. But if you have never engaged in questionable SEO tactics and truly believe that your site was a false positive, file a report with Google.

If you outsource SEO tasks, only work with a reliable SEO company that engages in ethical SEO tactics. Furthermore, take the time to ensure that your website is as valuable and relevant as possible. Don’t risk your business by engaging in dubious SEO practices that promise quick, effortless results. There’s no getting around the fact that SEO is a long-term effort that requires hard work and persistence. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets!

For years and years, the SEO community has been manipulating backlinks to their advantage. As a result, Google has issues trusting links and SEOs. To remedy the situation, Google has introduced a new feature known as Authorship.

The Authorship markup is a tag that verifies an author of a web page. It allows authors’ Google+ names and profile pictures to be displayed next to their articles in search results. This is great news because Google can now verify who an article’s original author is and prevent people from scraping that content. The Authorship markup also helps authors grow their following on Google+. Additionally, search results with a verified author have a higher click-through rate because they are seen as more trustworthy than anonymous results with no name or picture.

What Google Authorship Means for Link-Building

Back in the day, Google used to treat all links as being equal. But when SEOs started to manipulate the link graph through over-optimization, Google had to scrutinize links to determine which links were trustworthy and which links were not. There are a wide range of signals that Google uses to measure how trustworthy a link is. For example, reciprocal links and footer links aren’t as valuable as they used to be. Furthermore, links aren’t as important a ranking factor as they once were because of the rising significance of social signals.

Social signals are powerful because they say a lot about the trust, timeliness, and popularity of a website. But links still matter and link-building isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Google introduced Authorship in order to improve the quality of links and verify that they’re trustworthy. If Google can verify who the author of a link is, they place far more trust in that link because links with authors tend to be of higher quality. After all, few humans would be willing to claim authorship of spammy links.

Google weighs authored links differently, depending on the Author Rank of the link’s author. The more well-known an author, the more authority his/her links will have. Even if you’re not a well-known author, your links will still carry more weight than the links of an anonymous person.

How to Take Advantage of Google’s Authorship Markup

The first step is to start using the Authorship markup, so you become more trustworthy in the eyes of Google. And when it comes to link-building, try focusing on who you’re getting links from, not where. Google Authorship offers a gold mine of information. You can determine who an author is and how popular he is on the social web. This will assist you tremendously in your link-building and relationship-building efforts because you can aim to connect with people who have relevant websites and social media clout.

The Authorship markup is still very new, and its importance is likely to increase over time. Although some SEOs may try to create fake Google+ profiles so that they can use the Authorship markup on spammy sites, this tactic won’t be sustainable in the long run because it will be next to impossible to maintain multiple fake Google+ profiles and grow their followings. To achieve long-term success, webmasters will have to focus on building authority websites with true social media clout.

Keyword research is a simple process, yet many people overcomplicate it and take a lot more time than necessary to find the right keywords to target on their websites. Here are 13 tips that will help to streamline the keyword research process.

1. Stop relying on your own logic

One of the most common keyword research problems is people’s tendency to rely on their own logic and guess at keywords rather than explore all of the data that’s available.

2. Notice the difference between spoken and written word

Rather than targeting the same descriptive terms as your competitors, think of the keywords your customers use when they talk to you.

3. Explore keywords related to specific seasons

If appropriate for your industry, consider exploring keywords related to specific seasons.

4. Explore acronyms

Look for commonly used acronyms in your industry to access unexplored data that your competitors are probably ignoring.

5. Give searchers what they are looking for

Rather than putting your objectives first, give searchers the valuable content they are looking for when they search for particular keywords.

6. Determine what your customers really want

Most people focus on the keywords themselves, but it’s best to look at the big picture by determining not just what keywords users are searching for, but what the intent is behind those keywords.

7. Focus on less competitive keywords

Unless you have a huge marketing budget, you’re probably not going to be able to rank for highly competitive keywords, like “credit cards,” “mortgage” or “auto insurance.” Instead, focus on less competitive keywords, such as keywords related to your geographic location.

8. Continue performing keyword research

In online marketing, change is inevitable. Even after your site’s launch, you’ll have to perform keyword research periodically to ensure that your content keeps up with current trends in your industry.

9. Use social media data

Social media and SEO are becoming intertwined, so it’s vital to take social media data into consideration when performing keyword research for your site. Use sites like Social Mention and Topsy to monitor the use of keywords in social media and determine which ones are the most popular.

10. Avoid industry jargon

The goal of keyword research is to generate traffic from visitors who are interested in your products and services. But just because they’re interested in your offerings doesn’t mean they understand all of your industry’s terminology! Don’t go overboard with industry jargon and technical terms because your target audience may not understand them.

11. Don’t copy your competitors

Don’t target the same keywords your competitors are using – there’s a good chance that they aren’t even using the best ones! Dig around to find the high traffic, low competition keywords your competitors are likely to overlook.

12. Use Google’s auto-suggest feature

In the past, it was necessary to use keyword research tools to find keywords to target. Nowadays, you can just type words into Google’s search bar to find keywords that people are searching for.

13. Check the page rank, backlinks, and domain age of competing pages

Google page rank and the quality and quantity of backlinks are some factors that indicate how important a website is. Furthermore, the higher a site’s domain age, the more authoritative it is considered to be. If all of the pages that rank on the first page of results for a target keyword have a high page rank, tons of high quality links, and a high domain age, you may want to look for less competitive keywords to target.

In March 2012, Google’s Matt Cutts made a public statement that over-optimized websites would be penalized. Shortly thereafter, thousands of blogs and several prominent blog networks were de-indexed from Google. Most of the blogs removed from Google’s index were of low quality and had little authority, but even some sites with a high page rank were de-indexed. Furthermore, many sites saw a drop in rankings after these changes were put into place because some of the inbound links came from low quality domains.

Many SEO experts believe that by the end of the year, link-building and SEO as we know it will no longer exist. If you’re worried that your website may be affected by Google’s latest moves, here are some over-optimization techniques you want to be sure to avoid.

Keyword Stuffing

If the keywords in a web page’s title tag, URL, and inbound link anchor text all match, it raises red flags for Google because it doesn’t look natural. For the best results, mix up your inbound link anchor text a bit when building links to your site by using related keywords instead of the exact same keywords over and over. The same goes for your content – don’t stuff it with your target keywords! Make sure your content reads naturally.

Administrative Linking

Do you own a network of sites that are all interlinked? If so, you may want to take it easy with the interlinking because Google is starting to devalue those links. If you interlink excessively, your site may even get penalized or de-indexed.

Generic, Keyword-Rich Domain Name

Many internet marketers purchase generic domain names that match the keywords they want the sites to rank for. The problem is that their websites are typically of low quality and contain no valuable content. It’s a better idea to purchase a branded domain name because it’ll rank better in the long run. Google doesn’t like generic domain names.

Too Many Ads above the Fold

Are there too many advertisements above the fold on your site? If so, Google may penalize your site. The majority of your valuable content should be above the fold, and the ads should be towards the bottom.

Not Enough Valuable Content

Make sure your site provides rich, valuable content. Otherwise, your site’s rankings could take a hit! On an SXSW panel earlier this year, Matt Cutts specifically mentioned that these algorithm updates were designed to “level the playing field” for sites with great content but not-so-great SEO. This may be bad news for those who’ve honed their SEO chops over the years, but great news for content marketers, content writers, and anyone who specializes in creating high quality content for their online audience. Just be sure to add fresh content to your site on a regular basis in order to maintain its search engine visibility.

Links from Low Quality Sites

If your site has links from low quality sites, its rankings could take a beating. So, use a backlinks intelligence tool to analyze your backlinks. Remove links from sites that have been de-indexed or that have few or no social mentions. Additionally, look at the page rank of all the sites linking to you. You should be concerned if most of the domains linking to you have a page rank of n/a or zero.

Let’s say that you’ve created an amazing video to promote your website. You’re probably thinking, “Now what?” No matter how breathtaking your video is, it won’t help you build your brand, generate leads, and boost your company’s search engine visibility if all you do is upload it to YouTube and wait for something to happen. It’s essential to effectively market the videos you put out to ensure that they’re seen and heard by the right people.

Why Video?

Publishing videos is great for your site’s SEO because it boosts page quality, relevance, and keyword instances. Videos also increase the amount of time that users spend on your site, which is another indicator of page quality in the eyes of search engines. People are also more likely to link to your site if it contains videos. In addition, video thumbnails help your site stand out in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and improve click-through rates.

Make Sure That Surrounding Content Is Related to the Queries You’re Targeting

Merely embedding a video into a blog post is not enough if you want to rank for related queries. Google and other search engines can’t decipher embed codes, so surround your videos with text and images that are optimized for the queries you’re targeting. You could summarize the video in writing or talk about how the video was produced. You could also link to other related videos, turning your post into a rich, linkable resource that people will continue to reference over time. It’s also a good idea to include a full transcript with each video you post, so you can add more content to the page and help out users who can’t watch your videos for whatever reason.

Don’t Forget On-Page SEO

The title of your videos should be catchy, so people are more likely to watch them and link to them. You should also make sure that the titles and file names of your videos include target keywords, as long as they don’t compromise the quality of the titles. If you’re using a video hosting service like YouTube, add keyword-rich tags to your video, as well. YouTube even has its own keyword research tool that you can use to determine what relevant keywords video enthusiasts are searching for.

Create a Video Sitemap

Create a video sitemap to ensure that search engines are able to crawl and index all of your videos. Video sitemaps are similar to regular sitemaps, as they point to the URL of each video and list additional properties of each video, such as their duration.
Video sitemaps also make it easier for Google to add your videos’ thumbnails to the SERPs. You can refer to the Google Video Sitemap Guide or use a WordPress plug-in to simplify the process of creating a video sitemap.

Make Your Videos Easy to Share

Add social media icons to your video posts so that they’re easier to share. If you use WordPress, plugins like Shareaholic and Digg Digg come highly recommended. If you don’t feel the need to include buttons for so many different social networks, you can just grab codes from each social network that you’d like to include.

Start a Series

If you create a video that is particularly well-received, consider developing a series of related videos. Video series encourage people to return to your site and continue exploring your content.

2011 was a difficult year for the SEO world. From the Google Panda update to the removal of keyword referral data in Google analytics, the changes in search have made it all the more difficult to rank well for target search terms. But the New Year is upon us, and many SEO pros are gearing up for what is to come. Here are 5 SEO predictions for 2012.

1. Search and social will become inseparable

Google and other major search engines have continued to hint at the fact that social media plays an important role in search engine rankings. In 2012, it will become clear that no company can hide from the social web. Not only do social signals come into play in ranking algorithms, social media is becoming the primary method for users to discover and share new content online.

2. SEO will move towards content marketing and inbound marketing

SEO is becoming something broad and all-inclusive that incorporates content marketing, blogging, social media marketing, and web analytics. SEO companies will likely start focusing less and less on traditional SEO tactics, like link-building, site architecture, and keyword research to prioritize audience building and outreach. Increasing audience interaction with your content is critical because it enforces your brand’s authority, both in the eyes of search engines and users. The search engines continue to weed out sites with low quality content, so you also have to make sure that your content is engaging, informative, and useful. Keyword-stuffed articles you paid $5 for on a bidding site aren’t going to cut it anymore.

3. Google’s focus on paid search will back fire

Organic search engine results still get approximately 80% of all clicks, but that percentage is dropping, thanks to Google’s aggressive paid search ad displays that take up the first six positions. Nowadays, when you search for products, you’re bombarded with star ratings, reviews, prices, and product photos above the fold. While this is pushing more and more businesses to rely on paid search ads for traffic, Google’s strategy may end up backfiring in 2012 because people will become frustrated with being served so many paid ads and will start ignoring them in favor of organic results.

4. Brands that want greater search engine visibility will be forced to join Google+

It’s already happening. Google is encouraging more brands to join the Google+ network by making Google+ circles and +1s visible in their results. As more people join Google+, it will become easier for Google to link search and social signals. The downside of giving Google so much control is that they’ll obtain even more data about our online behaviors, which will make them an even more dominant force online than they already are.

5. Mobile search will become increasingly important

Optimizing your site for the mobile web isn’t just something to consider – it’s critical. Traffic levels to mobile websites are already significant, and they will continue to rise in 2012. Brands that do not have a mobile website and that don’t optimize their web presence for mobile users will suffer. Brands also have to manage content delivery effectively across various types of mobile devices, including smart phones, tablets, and game consoles, in order to maximize the value of mobile users.

Google has been getting a lot of flack lately in the SEO community for purportedly favoring big brands in its search results and kicking small businesses to the proverbial curb. According to critics, Google has managed to divert attention away from its questionable business strategies by publicizing projects like its self-driven cars and Google Plus, neither of which generates revenue for the Internet giant. Meanwhile, Google’s revenues have increased by billions of dollars this year and revenues from Google’s AdSense partner network have plummeted. What has Google done in order to grow so much, so fast, and why is its AdSense partner network suffering the consequences?

The Death of Organic Search Engine Rankings

Aaron Wall, a renowned SEO consultant and the founder of SEOBook, mentioned in a recent blog post that when he searched for the query “HD monitor” on Google, he could only see paid ads and links to Google pages above the fold. Based on his observations and Google’s sudden revenue growth, many critics suspect that Google is strategically directing search engine traffic to sites from which they can profit. This seemingly minor change has the potential to hurt many small business owners and affiliate marketers, who depend on high organic search engine rankings to generate traffic and sales. Google’s Matt Cutts even called independent affiliate marketers, “an unnecessary step in the sales funnel.”

Google is likely keeping the prime real estate in the SERPs for itself in order to boost profits. By becoming the largest affiliate, Google can quickly displace thousands of affiliate marketers and small businesses that rely on affiliate marketing income to survive. It’s a scary prospect, but Google will ultimately pay the price by killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

The Future of Online Marketing

People are bombarded with advertising and marketing messages on a daily basis, so they recognize ads quickly and tend to tune them out. Therefore, a good number of Google users are likely to head straight to the organic results when they perform searches. And if people continue searching for information on Google and realize that there is nothing but ads above the fold, they will probably begin to feel distrustful of Google’s search results and start using a different search engine. People use search engines to find relevant information, not ads.

Ultimately, it’s up to consumers to decide which search engine they’ll use, and if Google keeps this up, it’s likely that many people will seek an alternative. The world is ready for a new search engine, and Google’s making it easier for a competitor to take over the market by putting its own profits first.

Businesses that rely on the web for leads, sales, and profits can minimize their dependence on Google by building other sales funnels into their sites. From display advertising to social media marketing to email marketing, there are a variety of other effective online marketing strategies that you can implement. Other things that business owners can do to decrease Google’s power and influence in the online world is use a different search engine, avoid clicking on Google’s paid ads, and try other PPC ad networks besides AdWords.

There are many webmasters and unscrupulous SEOs who try to trick the search engines in order to achieve higher rankings. Their questionable SEO tactics, which are known as “black hat” SEO techniques, are often effective in the short-term, but they eventually get websites penalized or banned. Below are 8 common black hat SEO techniques that you should avoid.

1. Keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing is one of the most common forms of search engine spam out there. It involves placing targeted search terms in your website content numerous times. Repeating keywords excessively is not only frowned upon by the search engines – it also makes your content read horribly. Your SEO success ultimately depends upon your ability to consistently provide people with engaging content, and keyword-stuffed content is anything but that.

2. Cloaking

Cloaking is a technique that involves designing your website so that the search engines see one thing and visitors see another. Cloaking can be done with programming or redirects. If one of your competitors figures out that you’re cloaking, you can be sure that your site will get banned.

3. Doorway pages

Doorway pages are web pages that are created to spam a search engine’s index. Doorway pages are optimized to rank highly for specific keyword phrases. As its name suggests, a doorway page serves as a doorway to your main website. Doorway pages are generally skimpy on content and provide little value to visitors.

4. Hidden text

Hidden text is text that is the same color as the background. Nowadays, the search engines can easily detect it when text is set to the same color as the background of a website. Some webmasters try to get away with it by creating an image file that is the same color as the text and setting it as the background. However, your website will quickly get banned if a competitor figures out that you’re using hidden text and reports you.

5. Buying links

The practice of buying and selling links goes against the guidelines of major search engines, but many SEOs still do it. Buying links is seen as a quick way to achieve higher search engine rankings because the more backlinks your site has, the higher it will rank. However, the practice is frowned upon by the search engines because many webmasters use it to manipulate their sites’ rankings.

6. Title stacking

Title stacking, or the practice of adding multiple title tags to a web page, can temporarily increase traffic to your website but it will get you penalized or banned if the search engines find out about it.

7. Interlinking

Interlinking refers to building several websites and then linking them together in order to build their link popularity. Interlinking is difficult to detect, but users may figure it out if several interlinked websites achieve top rankings for target search terms.

8. Article spinning

Article spinning is the practice of using a program to rewrite your content and create multiple versions of it. Every time you spin an article, approximately 90% of it remains the same. Many webmasters spin content and then distribute it to article directories. This tactic used to be an effective method for increasing a site’s search engine rankings and boosting traffic, but most sites that build links this way have been penalized since the Google Panda update was implemented.

Google recently announced the so-called “Freshness” update, which was introduced to provide users with more up-to-date and relevant search results. An extension of the previous Caffeine update, the Freshness update affects approximately 35% of searches. But what exactly does the Freshness update mean for search marketers and those of us who rely on high search engine rankings for revenue?

Understanding the Freshness Update

Google’s Freshness update prioritizes recent and timely search results. That means when people search for information about hot topics, the most recently published content will show up. Fresh content will even be capable of ranking higher than older content with lots of links.

According to Google, different searches have different freshness needs. For recent events and trending topics, searchers want to find the latest information, which is generally content that is just minutes old.

When searching for information about regularly recurring events, such as the World Cup or the presidential elections, most users want to find information about the most recent event. For example, if you were to search for information about the Olympic Games right now, you’d probably want to read about the London 2012 Olympics, not the Tokyo 1964 Olympics.

Even users looking for information about topics that aren’t trending or related to current events sometimes require fresh results. For instance, if you’re buying a new car, you probably want to find up-to-date information about the makes and models currently on the market. Google’s Freshness update was designed to provide you the most current information related to your query.

The Freshness Update’s Winners and Losers

The search visibility of many news, broadcasting, and prominent brand websites has improved significantly since the Freshness update was implemented. Some major websites that have seen improvements in rankings include Rate My Professors, Lonely Planet, Huffington Post, the Daily Mail, and Last.fm. It is difficult to classify the sites that have lost search engine visibility after this update since they are all over the map, but some specific examples include American Express, Jezebel, Comcast, and Gizmag.com.

Overall, it seems that the Freshness update has improved the rankings of sites with the freshest, most frequently updated content. It’s no longer just about being relevant. Being timely is also important! So, if there’s a hot topic brewing in your industry, don’t write a blog post about it and then schedule it for later in the week – write the post and publish it immediately.

Post-Freshness Update Content Creation Strategies

Having fresh website content has always been important in SEO, but the Freshness update has made it even more of a necessity. Ultimately, the more frequently you publish content, the better. Content that deals with recent trends or events in your industry will do particularly well.

The timing of your posts is also crucial. If you publish articles about hot topics, do so when people are likely to be online searching for information about it. For example, if you’re writing content that’s aimed at office workers, publish it during business hours, not at 8pm on a Saturday night.

Regularly tweaking the existing content on your site is also important. For example, if you run an ecommerce site, keep your content fresh by revising product descriptions on a regular basis. Old, static pages that haven’t been updated since you launched your site are likely to hurt your rankings, so make an effort to regularly review your content and ensure that it’s up-to-date.

In this day and age, SEO is no easy task. From the lack of Google keyword data in analytics programs to the infamous Panda update, a constant barrage of changes in the SEO world that have made the work of optimizing websites all the more difficult. One of the most challenging aspects of SEO is undoubtedly building links. But having a natural link profile is essential to your website’s success because search engines penalize sites with backlinks that weren’t “earned.” If you are actively building backlinks for your website, here are 7 ways to make them appear more natural to the search engines.

1. Use a variety of anchor text

It’s common for SEOs to build multiple links using the same keyword anchor text, but it’s better to use different versions of the keyword you’re hoping to rank for when creating anchor text for backlinks. For example, if you’re trying to rank for the term, “Omaha web design,” you can target related keywords like, “web design services in Omaha” or “Omaha web designer.” It’s also a good idea to use your website’s URL as anchor text sometimes because it will make your links look more natural.

2. Avoid purchasing backlinks

Never buy links because the search engines will penalize you if they find out about it. And besides, most of the links that are sold these days are of low quality and will only hurt your website’s rankings in the long run.

3. Build links gradually and steadily

Don’t build links too quickly because it will raise eyebrows, unless of course your site was featured on CNN’s homepage. To avoid arousing the suspicion of the search engines, build links to your site gradually and steadily. Remember: quality always trumps quantity when it comes to links.

4. Get many different types of links

While editorial links are generally the best types of links to have, you shouldn’t limit yourself to one type of link. Try to obtain links from various sources, including blog rolls, resource pages, high quality directories, social media sites, etc.

5. Don’t just build links to your homepage

While it’s important to build links to your homepage, it’s also a good idea to get links that point to internal pages of your site because it shows the search engines that other pages of your website are attracting interest.

6. Build your presence in social media

Social media isn’t going away any time soon and anybody who’s anybody online needs to have a social media presence. Links that are shared via social media aren’t as valuable as links from standard websites, but they still count towards your rankings, so you need to be sure to include them in your link portfolio.

7. Get links from sites in the same industry

Links from websites that are specific to your industry are hands down the most valuable. Perform competitive backlink analysis to determine what industry sites are linking to your competitors, and then try to get links from the same sources.

The SEO community is currently up in arms because Google recently announced that it would no longer share referral data from logged-in users. That means website owners can no longer find out what keywords visitors logged into their Google accounts are using to reach their sites. In the past, webmasters could see it in their analytics programs if visitors typed in phrases like, “black dress” or “Los Angeles plumber,” to reach their sites. Now, all they can see is “(not provided).”

This is a huge blow for SEO professionals and webmasters because it makes it all the more difficult for them to determine what keywords to focus on in their SEO campaigns. How are we to know which keywords have the highest ROI and whether we’re maximizing the effectiveness of our SEO campaigns if we don’t have access to information about user intent?

Google’s So-Called Privacy Concerns

Google claims that it made SSL Search the default encryption protocol because it wants to protect the privacy of its users. However, Google is still providing query data for paid search listings. So, basically, Google is only giving referral data to advertisers. Some folks in the SEO community take this to mean that Google doesn’t actually care about their users’ privacy and just wants to force more companies to use AdWords.

Another reason why Google’s recent move has upset SEO pros and webmasters is that many of them rely on search intent data to customize their sites’ content. If Google wants webmasters to improve the user experience that their websites offer, they need to continue providing them with search referral data for logged-in users. Many marketers rely on search intent data to customize their sites’ content.

If Google truly cared about user privacy, it wouldn’t offer query data to advertisers, either! But hiding query data from advertisers would clearly be bad for business because it would make it impossible for advertisers to measure the ROI of their PPC campaigns.

What Comes Next?

There’s no denying that losing referral data is a huge setback, but it doesn’t mean that your SEO campaign will crumble. There are a few things you should do. First of all, track the quantity and percentage of lost keyword data. Google has said that they expect the percentage of lost keyword data to be less than 10% for most websites. It’s important to keep track of that information, so you can determine whether the figure increases or decreases over time.

Meanwhile, you can continue relying on the keyword data provided by Bing and Yahoo, which probably account for around 10-20% of your organic search referrals. You can also access existing Google data from users not logged into their Google accounts and users clicking on your paid search ads, if you’re an AdWords customer. Although it’s not complete, such data will prove invaluable when you’re deciding which keywords to target and figuring out how to optimize your site’s conversion rates.

If you’re investing in online ads of any kind, including pay-per-click ads and banner ads, it’s essential to use split testing to measure the effectiveness of your landing pages. Landing pages are the pages where visitors land when first visiting your site after clicking on your ad or link. With the help of split testing data, you can tweak your landing pages and improve their conversion rates, ultimately padding your bottom line and lowering advertising expenses.

It also makes sense to use split testing for landing pages that receive a steady amount of organic search engine traffic because it can help you improve your website’s overall conversion rates. It’s a good idea to promote the landing page heavily with advertising during the testing period, however, to ensure that the amount of traffic your landing page receives is statistically significant.

How It Works

Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is the process of comparing one variation of a landing page to another. Some elements of a landing page that you can test include the following:

• Font styles and colors
• Price changes
• Effectiveness of discounts
• Prices shown with or without tax
• Headlines, body copy, and call-to-action
• Photo and graphic usage
• Background color
• Location of opt-in box
• Badges from credible organizations, such as the Better Business Bureau
• Testimonials

Poorly designed landing pages are the leading cause of lost conversions for business websites. Your landing pages must be relevant, build trust, and make an offer your prospects can’t refuse in order to be successful. Moreover, your landing pages should have a clear call-to-action so that visitors can figure out what they are supposed to do next in a matter of seconds. If your landing page is unclear and hard to decipher, visitors will inevitably click away and head to one of your competitor’s websites instead.

Tips for Effective Split Testing

You can create two different versions of a landing page on your site, directing one half of the visitors to one page and the other half of visitors to the other page. Once you determine which landing page has the highest conversion rate, you can perform multivariate testing, or in other words, test multiple element changes against one another. The elements with the highest click-through rates should make it onto your final landing page.

Split testing is a time-consuming process, but it is well worth the effort. The more time you spend tweaking your landing page, the more money your website will make. There are several free and paid split testing programs to choose from. For example, if you use WordPress as your website’s content management system, there are plug-ins available that allow you to perform split testing with ease. Google also offers a free split testing program called Website Optimizer.

Never assume that your website doesn’t need split testing because it has a great design and compelling copy. All websites can use some improvement. Be willing to test various elements of your website’s landing pages in order to maximize conversions and sales.

In SEO, there are just as many myths and misconceptions that can damage your rankings as there are effective techniques that can propel your site to the top of the search engines. Because the search engines’ algorithms are kept secret from the general public, it’s common for misconceptions to flourish. One inaccurate blog post, forum post, or article is enough to spread a damaging SEO myth. Below are 5 of the most common myths in the industry and the truth behind them.

1. Toolbar Pagerank is important

Toolbar Pagerank is the Pagerank that appears in the Google Toolbar. Note that Toolbar Pagerank is not the same as a site’s internal Pagerank that Google uses in its algorithm. In the early days of SEO, the higher your Toolbar Pagerank was, the more valuable the search engines considered your site. Therefore, when webmasters built links, they only sought links from sites that had a Toolbar Pagerank of 4 or higher. Many people continue to follow this link-building strategy, even though it’s been proven that the Toolbar Pagerank no longer plays a role in a site’s rankings.

2. The META keywords tag affects your rankings

The META keywords tag will not help your rankings. It won’t do your site any harm, either, but creating them is just a waste of valuable time. Google publicly announced years ago that they were no longer using the META keywords tag to rank websites. Don’t confuse the META keywords tag with the META description tag, however. While the latter isn’t used to determine rankings, it is used as a snippet for your site in the search results, so it can help to increase your site’s click-through rates.

3. You have to submit your site to the search engines on a regular basis

Many unethical SEO firms mislead their clients by charging them to submit their sites to search engines multiple times. In reality, once your site is launched, you only need to submit it to the search engines once and doing so is free. There’s no need to pay an SEO company a hefty fee to do it for you! In fact, you don’t have to do it at all because the search engines will find and index your site on their own, as long as it gets a few links and visitors.

4. Nofollow backlinks are worthless

Backlinks from sites that use the “nofollow” tag are widely considered to be worthless, but many SEO professionals are starting to believe that the search engines consider nofollow links in their algorithms to some extent. Many authoritative sites, such as Wikipedia and Digg, use nofollow links. And links from those sites are still highly regarded. Furthermore, regardless of whether a link is nofollow, it will still refer visitors to your site. Even traffic you attract via nofollow links is valuable because those visitors may eventually become your customers.

5. You shouldn’t link to other sites on your site because it’ll decrease your rankings

Many webmasters try to keep outgoing links on their sites to a minimum because they believe that linking out will cause their own sites’ rankings to decrease. The truth is that linking out to other sites will not decrease your rankings. In fact, if you do it right, linking out to other sites could even improve your rankings. Google, the world’s most popular search engine, aims to highly rank sites that offer the best possible user experience. And linking out to relevant, useful content on other websites improves your site’s user experience. On the other hand, Google considers it unnatural for sites to have no outgoing links whatsoever. The only outgoing links that may hurt your site’s rankings are links that point to spammy, irrelevant, or malicious sites.

PageRank is an algorithm that Google uses to measure how reputable a website is. A site’s PageRank depends on the quality and quantity of its incoming links, as well as on the quantity of outgoing links it has per page. PageRank values range from 0-10.

In the early years of SEO, PageRank was one of the most important ranking signals, so many webmasters tried to manipulate their sites’ PageRank by building links organically or paying for links from sites with a high PageRank. Nowadays, SEOs are divided when it comes to the topic of PageRank. Some SEOs still believe that PageRank is important, while others have stopped caring about it.

According to Google’s Matt Cutts, PageRank is still important, but it is only one out of 200 signals that Google uses to rank websites. So, while PageRank matters, webmasters should probably focus their energies on increasing relevant traffic to their websites rather than on boosting their websites’ PR.

But that doesn’t mean you should stop caring about PageRank altogether. Your website’s PageRank affects the number of pages on your website that get indexed by Google. So, in order to increase the number of pages of your website that are indexed by Google, you need to increase your site’s PageRank. Furthermore, to ensure that the most important pages of your site are being indexed by Google, it’s necessary to build high-value links that point specifically to those pages. High-value links are links that hail from relevant, high authority websites.

A website’s PageRank determines how much value its outbound links provide to other sites. Generally speaking, links from a PR8 site are more valuable than links from a PR1 site. However, links from high PR websites don’t matter if they aren’t from relevant websites, or if the websites link to several irrelevant websites from the same page.

For example, if you have a website that sells light bulbs and you get a link from a PR8 site that sells tables and links to several other irrelevant websites from the same page, you won’t get much value from that link, despite the high PageRank of the site. You’d be better off getting links from sites with a lower PageRank but that are relevant to your website. It’s important to note that few websites have a PageRank above 5 besides governmental websites, educational websites, or websites from large, famous companies.

Rankings, Traffic, and Conversion Rates Are More Important Than PageRank

The general consensus among online marketers is that PageRank doesn’t affect rankings directly because a PR0 website could outrank a PR5 website in some instances. It wouldn’t hurt to monitor your website’s PR, but it’s far from being the most important metric to pay attention to when it comes to your online presence.

When you build links to your site, make an effort to get links from high PR sites, but only if they’re relevant and don’t contain several other outbound links. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t obsess over PageRank, but you shouldn’t ignore it, either. PageRank is important because it helps you determine whether your link-building efforts are on the right track, but in the end, your site’s traffic levels, sales, and conversion rates are what matter most.

Google’s Panda update, also known as the Google Farmer update, was introduced back in February of this year. Article directories and web 2.0 sites, such as EzineArticles, ArticlesBase, HubPages, and Squidoo, lost traffic and rankings because of Google Panda, so many websites that relied heavily on these sites for backlinks were also hit hard.

Article marketing has been an important backlinking strategy since the beginning of SEO. But Google’s Panda update penalized article directories because many of them continually published low quality, regurgitated content that brought down the quality of Google’s search results.

Many online marketers hire the cheapest writers they can find to write content or use article spinning software to create several variations of the same article and then submit them to different article directories. Such practices further contributed to the downward spiral of article marketing’s quality. An increasing number of Google users complained about the low quality content that often appeared in the search results and Google had to do something about it. That’s how Google’s Panda update was born.

Is Article Marketing Still Worthwhile?

After Google Panda, article marketing definitely isn’t effective as it used to be, but it’s still alive. You can benefit from article marketing if you submit original, quality content to the top article directories and then have links point to those articles from various sources, including your website. In order to be considered high quality, your articles must be well-researched and well-written.

What you shouldn’t do, which is the type of practice that Google was trying to do away with by introducing the Panda update, is hire someone in India to write hundreds of sloppy $3 articles for you, submit them to various article directories, and then expect to see improved rankings and traffic. The article directories that were the worst hit by the Google Panda update are scrambling to improve the quality of their articles by increasing the required word count of article submissions and making their editorial requirements stricter. So, if you want to engage in article marketing and see worthwhile results, you can no longer submit low quality writing and expect it to improve your website’s search engine rankings. You have to write excellent content and then promote it to some extent if you want to see positive results.

How to Get the Most out of Article Marketing

After you write great content and submit it to the top article directories, you have to build links to the content. You can do this by linking to the content on your own website, submitting the content to social media websites like Twitter and Facebook, and submitting the content to social bookmarking sites. It’s also important to note that many article directories have their own communities. By getting involved in their respective communities, you can drive more traffic to your articles and ultimately, your website.

If you only rely on the search engine traffic that your articles receive, then you will be sorely disappointed in the results of article marketing. You may even find that you get ZERO traffic from your articles in article directories, unless you actually do the work of promoting them.

You also have to keep in mind that the links you get from article directories and web 2.0 sites don’t transfer trust, authority, and pagerank to your site like they used to. The pages themselves accumulate trust, authority, and pagerank, however, and thus help boost traffic to your site by pointing people to it. Just remember not to put all of your eggs in one basket. Article marketing is effective, but you should rely on a diversity of backlinking strategies if you want your website to succeed in the long run.

Google Alerts is a free tool that allows you to monitor Google search results containing predefined keyword phrases. Businesses commonly utilize Google Alerts to find out what’s being said about their brand online. You can choose to have the results emailed to you on a daily or weekly basis.

Not only is Google Alerts an effective reputation management tool, it can also be used to get content development ideas, build relationships, and keep up with important industry news. Google Alerts is also a great addition to your SEO toolbox because it is a wonderful source of potential link-building opportunities. The following are 7 ways to build links to your site with the help of Google Alerts.

1. Find relevant blog posts on which to comment

When you are alerted of blog posts related to your industry and feel that you could contribute to the conversation, leave a comment with a link back to your site.

2. Build relationships

Google Alerts makes it easier for you to find other people in your niche, so it’s an effective relationship-building tool. In the world of internet marketing, relationships = links. By keeping up with who’s who in your industry and forging connections with the webmasters/bloggers you encounter via Google Alerts, you will be able to build valuable, relevant links back to your site.

3. Find relevant references and link to them

Writing an article for your website? Use Google Alerts to find relevant references to link to within your article. The webmasters you link to may even link back to your article if they think it would be beneficial to their readership.

4. Find videos to share with your audience

Use Google Alerts to find relevant videos about your industry. When you find a great video, you can embed it in one of your articles and share it with your audience. Videos are great because they allow you to increase the value of your content quickly and easily. Furthermore, you may even get a link back from the producer of the video.

5. Spy on the competition

Want to know where your competitors are getting mentions and links? Use your competitors’ company names as keywords and keep track of them with Google Alerts, so you can determine where they get their links and whether it would be feasible for you to get links from the same sites.

6. Keep track of sites that are picking up articles and press releases you publish

Whenever you distribute articles or press releases, keep track of their exact titles using Google Alerts. You will be notified anytime one of your articles/press releases is picked up by another site. Contact the sites that pick up your article/press releases and offer to provide them with original content in the future. You can embed a link back to your site within the content.

7. Get links from people who are already talking about you

Keep tabs on your company’s name with Google Alerts so you can find out which sites are mentioning your brand online. Doing this will help you spot the best link building opportunities, since someone who’s already mentioned your brand favorably is more likely to provide you with a link than someone who’s never heard of you before.

Websites are becoming more complex than ever before. Many sites are packed with a wealth of information, so it can be difficult for visitors to find specifically what they seek. Installing a site search box on your website will help visitors find what they’re looking for more quickly.

Not only will internal site search improve the usability of your site, it will also help you improve your website’s conversions and sales by providing you with important marketing data. The following are 5 things you can do with the information gleaned from internal site search analytics.

1. Create New Products and Services

Have you noticed from analyzing internal site search data that many people are searching for a product or service on your site that you don’t yet offer? If so, you may want to consider offering that product or service in order to fill a need. Analyzing internal site search data is a great way to get ideas for new products/services because it allows you to determine exactly what your target audience is looking for when they visit your site.

2. Get Content Creation Ideas

You’ll never have trouble determining what to write about or what type of content to produce for your site if you pay attention to internal site search data. By seeing what topics people are searching for on your site, you can get tons of content creation ideas. From whitepapers and articles to videos and glossaries, there are many different types of content your target audience may be looking for on your site.

3. Discover New Keywords

If you’ve discovered that many people are searching for the same keyword phrases when they use your site’s internal search function, consider targeting those keywords in your search marketing campaign. By incorporating these new keywords into your search marketing campaign, you will be able to better meet your target market’s needs, widen your audience, and increase search engine traffic for keywords you hadn’t considered before.

4. Tweak Your Site Based on Performance Metrics

Track your site’s performance using internal site search and then tweak your site based on your findings. Some key performance metrics that you should keep in mind include the bounce rate of visitors who use internal site search, your site’s conversion rate, the percentage of search query refinement, and the percentage of search exits. Looking at performance metrics across multiple site visitors will give you a good idea about which areas of your site need updating or expansion.

5. Get to Know Your Target Audience More Intimately So You Can Better Serve Them

By analyzing the keyword phrases that people search for when they use the internal site search function on your site, you’ll have a better understanding of the types of people who are using your site. Getting to know your audience more intimately will help you create content that is targeted to their needs.

In sum, don’t overlook the power of internal site search. You can learn a lot more about your site visitors and what they want by tracking their activity using internal site search analytics. If you haven’t already, you can set up Google Site Search at an affordable price. To track Google Site Search through Google Analytics, follow the instructions here.

You’ve spent countless hours crafting original, informative articles for your site. You feel proud publishing the freshly minted content on your site because it’s superior to what your competition’s got and you know that your target audience is going to love it. A few weeks later, you search for your target keywords in Google to see how your content is performing and it’s been outranked… by a website that has totally ripped off your content!

Content theft is unfortunately very common online, and doing nothing about it can have a negative impact on your site. If you want to be recognized as an authority in your industry, it’s essential that you address content theft right away. Otherwise, people will find the same content on other people’s sites and be unsure about who wrote it first. Furthermore, your website’s profits will suffer if someone steals your content and uses it to sell to the same audience.

What’s more, you may discover that the content thief’s website is outranking your site with the stolen content because their site is more established and has more backlinks. If the search engines assume that you stole the content instead of the other way around, they may flag your site as being low quality and penalize it, which can have dire consequences for your online presence.

How to Check for Content Theft

In order to prevent all of these horrible things from happening to your site, you have to check to see if people are stealing your content so you can address the problem right away. Content theft is ILLEGAL. Even if the content thief isn’t selling something with your stolen content or there’s no copyright notice on your site, it’s still against the law.

You can check for content theft at no cost by entering your site’s URL on Copyscape’s homepage. You can also search for the titles or excerpts of your site’s most important articles in Google to see if anyone’s copied your work.

Contact the Content Thief Directly

If you catch somebody stealing your content, send a polite email to the webmaster, asking him/her to remove the content in question. In some cases, webmasters are simply ignorant about the fact that cutting and pasting content is illegal and will remove the content right away if you ask them to do so.

If that doesn’t do the trick, contact the webmaster’s hosting company. You can find out who the content thief’s host is by searching for their URL on Whois. You can ask to have the individual webpage or the entire site removed.

If you have an account with Google Webmaster Tools, request to have the duplicate content removed from Google’s search results by filing a Spam Report. You can also report copyright infringement to Google Legal Support because under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is Google’s responsibility to respond to notices of copyright infringement.

The next step would be to send a “cease and desist” letter to the culprit via registered mail. If the webmaster doesn’t remove the content after receiving the letter, send another one to the hosting company. Unless the webmaster can prove that the content is theirs, the hosting company will be obligated to remove it. If all else fails, you can call a lawyer and sue the webmaster to have the content removed.

Prevention Is the Best Medicine

As the old saying goes, prevention is the best medicine. Rather than waiting till someone steals your content to do something, do your best to prevent it from happening in the first place by putting a copyright notice on the footer of your website. You may also want to consider adding a Copyscape badge to your site to discourage potential content thieves from doing the dirty deed.

Internal links don’t carry as much weight as links from other websites, but they are still important in SEO because they affect indexation, search engine crawling, and PageRank distribution. Other aspects of your website that are affected by internal linking structure include user-friendliness and conversion rates. Internal links also help you drive more traffic to internal pages of your site. Improve your website’s internal linking structure by following the 7 tips below.

1. Use keyword anchor text

When linking to other pages of your site, use relevant keyword anchor text. For example, if you’re linking to a page about black shoes, do keyword research to find out what keyword phrases people use when they search for black shoes and then use them as anchor text. Anchor text tells the search engine bots what a page’s content is about and improves a page’s ranking for that particular phrase.

2. Use text navigation links

Search engine bots still have difficulty crawling navigation menus that require Flash or Javascript, so be sure to use text navigation links.

3. Fix broken links

Use Google Webmaster Tools to identify broken links throughout your blog. Remove the broken links or fix them by redirecting them to valid pages in order to reduce indexation time and improve the rankings of your site’s internal pages.

4. Create a sitemap

A well-defined sitemap informs both the search engines and site visitors exactly what pages are on your site and what they’re about. Sitemaps ensure that search engines can crawl and therefore rank every page of your site.

5. Don’t overdo it

Placing internal links in your content improves your site’s usability. Internal links give visitors access to internal pages of your site and share more relevant content with them. There shouldn’t be any more than 100 links per page, however, and the number of external links should be lower than the number of outgoing links a page has. If there are lots of external links on your website, most of your PageRank juice will be driven to external websites and your internal pages will get less link juice as a result.

6. Use footer links

Rather than making your site visitors scroll all the way back to the top of the page or click all the way back to the home page to reach your site’s navigation menu, why not use footer links? All of the important links from your site’s navigation bar can be linked to in the footer. Other pages you can link to in the footer of your site include your social media profiles, your company blog, and important pages that you don’t want crowding your high level navigation bar, such as your Privacy Policy.

7. Place important links at the top of the page

Search engines evaluate a variety of factors when measuring the value of internal links and their position on a page is one of them. Links in the footer have less value than links at the top of a page, so make sure you place the most important links at the top of each page.

Want to build more valuable backlinks and boost traffic to your site? Participation in Q&A sites is a great way to generate targeted traffic and build quality links. Q&A sites, which include Yahoo! Answers, Quora, and how-to sites like Wikihow, have significantly grown in popularity over recent years. Since major search engines like Google aim to provide users with diverse search results, they typically include a few different types of sites on the first page, including commercial sites, Q&A sites, Wikipedia, video sites, news sites, etc. Q&A sites tend to take up at least a couple of slots on the first page of search results.

Why Search Engines Love Q&A Sites

Q&A sites rank well because they are updated frequently by people who ask and answer questions. And it’s no secret that the search engines prefer active, frequently-updated sites over static sites. Q&A sites are also SEO-friendly since their content is keyword-rich and they contain lots of internal links owing to the generation of relevant questions/answers or articles on each page. In addition, Q&A sites get linked to often because they are informative and easy to find.

Another factor that makes participation in Q&A sites worthwhile is the fact that an increasing number of people type questions when they conduct searches on Google and other major search engines. Q&A sites are popular with users who type questions into the search engines since they provide direct answers to their questions.

How to Use Q&A Sites to Your Advantage

The easiest way to get started with Q&A sites is by answering questions related to your industry and placing relevant links to your site within your answers. You can find questions to answer by searching Google for target keywords in your industry and picking Q&A sites that rank on the first page. You will surely get decent traffic through the answers you leave on those sites since they are already ranking well in the search engines.

Search Engines Value a Diversity of Links

If you want your link portfolio to look natural, you need to seek links from a variety of different websites. Adding links from Q&A sites is a great way to diversify your link portfolio. If you only get links from one type of site, such as blogs or directories, your site is more likely to get flagged by the search engines.

Get More Targeted Traffic

Another benefit of participating in Q&A websites is that you can generate more targeted traffic to your website. For example, say you sell tours to Turkey and answer questions related to Turkey travel on Q&A sites. If somebody searches for “things to do in Turkey,” they might find your answers on Q&A sites in the results. If they like your answers and click on your links, they may decide to sign up for a tour in Turkey on your website.

Even if you are an affiliate, you can use this tactic to your advantage because there’s a chance that someone who clicks on your link on a Q&A site will click on your affiliate banner and purchase a product. Traffic that sites receive via Q&A sites tends to convert well since it is highly targeted.