Archive for category SEO
Taking Another Look At Google Fresh
Posted by ThomasStone in Guest Posts, SEO on November 29, 2011
Google’s early November algorithm update, commonly called Google Fresh, is another step towards Google’s goal of providing the most helpful, relevant search results to users. By focusing on the timeliness of search items, Google is hoping to clear its search results pages of the cobwebs and dust bunnies of years-old content that constantly plagues searchers and frustrates their attempts to find up-to-date information.
Searches for annual events are prime candidates for reform through Google Fresh. Searching for the names of a specific event, such as the annual Mobile Marketing Association Forum, can yield results from years ago, but it’s more likely that a user is attempting to find information on events happening this year or next week. With the initial Fresh rollout, many of these problems began disappearing, but it will take many tweaks and updates before it reaches a level that will satisfy users and the mammoth of Mountain View. Though Fresh should provide a marked improvement in user experience, it will likely have a negative impact on many websites, at least in the short term. If newer, timelier web pages are rising to the top, it means other pages are being pushed to the bottom.
Stay Fresh
How can businesses, webmasters and blog owners avoid being penalized by Fresh? Well, the best way to avoid being penalized is to stay fresh. This doesn’t necessarily apply equally to all websites or industries, though. The professional pressure washing industry doesn’t see many revolutionary products or ideas, so their message isn’t as time sensitive as others. Things tend to stay the same from one year to the next. In the end it’s all about providing the best value for the customers. Users who are trying to figure out what to do in Chicago don’t want to read about venues that have closed or events long passed. New restaurants and venues crop up all the time, so having current information on the Windy City’s attractions would benefit a travel site dedicated to events in Chi-town. By keeping content up to date, businesses will ensure that their customers get the best data and have enough information to make informed choices.
Time stamping content accurately will let Google know what content is new and what’s old, keeping irrelevant items out of time sensitive search results. The time stamp will likely become increasingly important in search rankings from here on out, making it imperative that every piece of content is tagged accurately. Google likely has dozens of different metrics at its disposal for aiding in determining when a piece was published, but it’s unlikely that any have as prominent a position as the timestamp. Have a clearly displayed date for content not only helps Google but it also aids users in determining the relevance of content. In this way, building for a friendly, helpful user experience will also provide a benefit in search rankings by giving Google more knowledge about a page so it can rank it properly. For websites that wish to be included in Google News, providing a valid date is actually required. If the crawlers can’t find a clear publication date, the search engine will skip the page and provide the webmaster with an error explaining the problem and how to fix it.
Though Fresh will have a profound impact on end users, it doesn’t have to mean huge changes in site traffic for businesses and individuals committed to providing relevant, current information. Constantly updating the content of a site and including the original publication date of every article or post will help both users and Google evaluate the page and will result in a more profitable location in Google’s rankings.
Google Encrypts User Keywords
Posted by ThomasStone in Security News, SEO on November 3, 2011
In today’s Internet marketing world, companies must implement a broad portfolio of strategies to succeed online. Social media is rapidly accelerating in importance, while email marketing is still a reliable strategy. The huge industry that has developed around the online coupon craze –contenders like Groupon, Facebook Deals, and Google Offers–represents an increasingly effective way for small businesses to broadcast their brand across the online terrain. Pay-per-click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices can also extremely effective, but Google has recently made a move that affects several of these marketing strategies.
Citing user security concerns, Google decided to encrypt the key terms that deliver users to websites when these users are logged in to a Google account. Google has said this will affect a relatively small percentage of searches, but that percentage will likely grow as more people create Google accounts.
Previously, Google Analytics users could see the info surrounding the traffic flowing to their sites as well as the keywords people use to get there. With this information, website owners could build a strategy around those keywords. This made it fairly simple for users to consider where they should target their ads and how they could optimize for targeted keywords. Now that these queries are being concealed, website owners will be able to see that guests are coming to them from Google.com but not the keywords that brought them to their site.
PPC is another popular strategy to drive traffic and can be very effective when paired with other tools. With PPC, advertisers pay the website owner for every time someone clicks on their ad. The sponsored links that appear on sidebars and at the top of Google searches are another form of PPC. These companies pay Google directly. Google gets a lot of money through PPC and their decision to conceal queries will most likely be effective in directing more users toward PPC. It is not surprising that Google would strategize against companies championing methods used to capture organic search by legitimate means. Truthfully, it’s in Google’s best interest to not have the code of their search algorithm cracked. However, knowing the query terms that prompt a website to come up is just one of the many aspects of an SEO plan and this encryption of some keyword searches should do little to sway an overall SEO strategy.
Even though Google has made search queries harder to access, it is only a speed bump for SEO. Sure, some users who used to optimize themselves will find the process to be impossible without a roadmap. But any website that is using a professional SEO company shouldn’t experience too much of an effect.
Google’s move to encrypt search queries is certainly bold. It shows that Google isn’t afraid to flex its muscles under the guise of security concerns. While Google is not the only active search engine, it commands the highest market share by far. Despite Google’s disturbing move, smart companies can still succeed online using a comprehensive strategy that combines SEO, PPC, social media, online coupons and email marketing.
Need More Web Traffic? Why Just Focusing on SEO Isn’t Good Enough
Posted by Kirsty LaVier in Blogging, SEO on June 20, 2011
If you want to make the most out of your website, you need a solid SEO strategy. However, relying on the search engines for all of your traffic is the web equivalent of putting all of your eggs in one basket. The search engines change their algorithms all the time. Sometimes, those changes are minor; other times, they make major changes that have a drastic effect on the rankings. Since you can’t control what the search engines do, you can’t rely solely on them for all of your traffic.
So, what else can you do to drive traffic?
Lots of things! Start by building an email list. It’s not hard to add an opt-in box on your website. That way, you’ll still be able to communicate with people even if you suddenly lose your rankings. A quick email can let all of your subscribers know about your latest product, a new deal you’re offering, or your newest service.
But what about getting new traffic?
There are plenty of ways to do that, too! Start by jumping into the social networking revolution. Companies all over the world are becoming visible on Twitter and Facebook. Both websites offer you a great opportunity to get more customers, spread your message, and communicate directly with your target audience – all without depending on the search engines! A solid article marketing or guest blogging strategy can get your name and your link out there – even if your website isn’t very visible on the search engines. As an added benefit, every time you publish an article or do a guest post for a blog in your niche, post a link to it on your Twitter and Facebook pages. After all, you can never have too much self-promotion!
And, you can take advantage of one of the newest trends in web content – videos. Web videos are getting more and more popular. You can upload them right to YouTube, then post a link to your website, tell your email list about it, and post a link to the video on your Twitter and Facebook pages. If your video is interesting, it can quickly become viral on the social networking sites – even before the search engine spiders have a chance to index it!
And, if you want to add some advertising into the mix, Interspire shopping cart has a tool that can automatically create an AdWords campaign for your products. That way, if you lose your rankings, you can have ads that are right at the top of the search results.
By diversifying your traffic, you can actually see more results than you can with even the best SEO strategy. After all, when it comes to web traffic, you can never have too much of it!
What are your favorite methods besides relying on search engines for generating traffic to your site?
Looking at 3 Measures and Metrics for Website Quality
Posted by Jess_Spate in Blogging, SEO on May 18, 2011
Quantifying how good a website is very difficult. What are the signs of a great website? Plenty of visitors, lots of links from other large and excellent websites, Facebook fans, mentions on Twitter, good clean HTML and attractive design. Rolling all that information up into a single, easy to understand metric is very tricky. Then there is the question of actually extracting all that input information in the first place. Some of those factors can’t really be quantified, especially without human intervention.
PageRank looks primarily at your link profile
There are two popular approaches to measuring website quality. The most common looks at the link profile on the assumption that good sites get more links. PageRank (PR) is the best known of these metrics, and it takes into account both the number of inbound links and the quality of linking sites. It’s usually expressed as a digit ranging from zero to ten, the higher the better. It’s been around for a while and it’s nice and simple.
A lot of people use PageRank to attract linking partners and sell advertising space, but there is a problem. Published PageRanks are only updated every few months, so a new site that has worked hard for three months and now has plenty of inbound links may still have zero PR. Many pro bloggers and SEO folks have moved away from PR for that reason. The replacement metric of choice is usually mozRank, which uses similar concepts but leaves behind the delay problem that annoys so many low PR webmasters. It ranges from 0 to 10 and is a little more precise than PR, because values are reported to two decimal places.
Replacing PageRank with MozRank
There are a few variations on mozRank, but perhaps the most powerful is the concept of mozRank Passed. This metric aims to quantify the amount of power a link from a particular page conveys. It takes into account the number of outbound links, the page’s own mozRank and several other factors. It’s not in popular use yet, so it’ll be very interesting to see whether the SEO community thinks this measure is valuable over the long term.
Alexa takes a look at your traffic
The second site evaluation strategy is to use the number of visitors. That’s all very well for webmasters who have access to their own visitor data, but when you want to check out the competition you won’t have access to their analytics accounts. So, how to estimate visitor activity? Alexa Rank is the most widely used metric of this kind, and they use browsing data collected from every user with an Alexa Toolbar installed. Their rank is based on a relatively small subset of internet users- the exact number of Alexa Tool users isn’t public knowledge- but downloads number in the tens of millions.
Because it’s based on small statistical sample, Alexa Rank is only really useful for big sites. It is a true rank with values ranging from the millions to number one, the lower the better. Google firmly occupies the top spot, followed by Facebook and YouTube. An active PR5 commercial website might have an Alexa Rank in the hundreds of thousands, and a value of a million is reasonable for a medium-sized PR3 blog.
No Single Metric Gives a Proper Pictures of Website Quality
While it’s quick and convenient to quote PR, mozRank, and Alexa Rank (and many people pick just one), no single measure gives a full picture of website quality. As a mathematician I hate to say it, but the best tool for evaluating a site is still the human eye. Does the design look sharp? Is the navigation easy and intuitive? Is it actively updated? Most importantly, is it useful, funny, or interesting?
Numerical metrics are great, but they still need to be combined with the evaluation of a human being to be really informative. When you’re looking for a linking partner or evaluating a business opportunity online, always check the PR and the other ranks, but use your own judgement too. Sites that are obviously putting a lot of effort into content may start out ranking poorly but they’ll soon start to rise- just because a site has zero PR and low mozRank doesn’t mean it won’t make a good investment.
9 Steps to Successful SEO Copy
Posted by TimArends in Guest Posts, SEO on May 11, 2011
Website promoters know that most traffic comes from the search engines. They also know that two of the major factors that affect ranking in the engines are inbound links to one’s site and keywords. Significantly, these two factors work together: the keywords on your site tell search engines what your site is about, and the backlinks to your site tell them how important your site isThe combination of the two factors determine your relevance. And relevance is, of course, what the search engines are all about.
There’s been a lot of talk about HTML meta tags and their importance. It’s wise to view these meta tags almost as street signs, which is how the search engines look at them. Specifically, the keywords in the tags should match those in the copy or your site will not be indexed for those keywords. Of course, the engines also take into consideration how often the keywords are used on the page. You shouldn’t overuse keywords in your copy, but you should make sure that it at least contains them. The trick is to make your copy keyword rich but not to compromise readability. Readability is important to your visitors — after all, they are the ones who will buy your product or service.
Keep the following nine guidelines in mind and you will be better able to make the copy on your site appealing to both visitors and search engines.
1. Categorize your site
Keep the structure of your site in mind. If you structure your pages around certain benefits, it will be easier to categorize them by keyword. For example, if you have a site that sells handmade Macbook and iPad carrying cases, you could divide it into separate pages for Macs, iPads, iPhones and so on, then segment each section into the different models and capacities. This way, your narrowly focused pages will be able to target more specific keywords.
2. Find your keywords
Subscribe to www.wordtracker.com for a day, type in the key points of products you’ve identified on each page of your site, and analyze keywords your customers will use when they’re searching for your products. Naturally, these are the words you will want to use in your copy.
3. Use phrases rather than single words
Needless to say, there’s much more competition for single keywords than there are for longer key phrases. Research also shows that, as Internet users become more search savvy, they’re more likely to search for specific strings rather than individual words. They’re learning that they can find what they’re looking for much faster by being more specific. So think about what’s unique about your business. For example, if you sell handmade Macbook and iPad carrying cases, then use this as your primary keyword phrase. In this way you’ll have a better chance of ranking in the more targeted searches. WordTracker can help you find the most appropriate phrases.
4. Focus on the important phrases
Don’t try to include every possible keyword phrase that could relate to every page. Focus instead on one or two phrases per page. For example, for your Macbook cases page, you could focus on the phrase ” handmade Macbook carrying cases.” On your iPad cases page, focus on “handmade iPad cases.”
5. Get specific.
Don’t just say “our cases.” Instead, wherever you would normally use that phrase, use instead the phrase “our iPad carrying cases.” Be careful though. Never sacrifice readability for keyword placement or you will risk annoying your visitors.
6. Put your keyword phrases in your links.
Tie your pages together with text links so that the search engines will see that the pages are related. For example, on the bottom of your “handmade iPad carrying cases” you would include a text link to your “handmade Macbook carrying cases” page. You can also include a similar link within the body of the page. For example, “In addition to offering handmade iPad carrying cases, we also offer handmade Macbook carrying cases” with the relevant phrases being links.
7. Use key phrases in your headings.
As you probably know, headings help readers to scan your website, but they help the search engines too, since they assign more value to phrases that are marked with the heading tag. Therefore, be sure to include your key phrases in your headings as well.
8. Don’t worry about keyword density
This may seem surprising, but I do not think you should pay too much attention to the keyword density of your text. This is because concentrating on keyword density almost inevitably results in poor quality copy. Fortunately, if you follow the other tips in this article, obsessing over keyword density will be unnecessary.
9. Write, write, write!
This may seem obvious, but copy really is king! If writing is a chore for you, consider using a voice dictation program like Dragon Dictate for Mac or Dragon NaturallySpeaking for PC. This allows you to write just as quickly as you can speak. Of course, careful proofreading will be necessary, but this is true no matter how you create your content, and many people find dictating much easier and mor natural than speaking.
These guidelines will help to ensure good search engine optimization for your copy. The main thing you want to do is find a balance between copy that is written for the search engines and that which is written for your real human visitors. In the final analysis, the latter always takes precedence over the former.
Google Duplicate Content Penalty, is it real?
Posted by Daniel Snyder in Blogging, SEO on April 18, 2011
Duplicate content raises a lot of concern in the world of webmasters and bloggers, the fear of the infamous ‘duplicate content penalty’ abounds. We are constantly being warned against producing and utilizing duplicate content, and I agree, the use of duplicate content on your blog is not something I would ever encourage. After all your blog, is supposed to be YOURS, a unique piece of the internet where you can share your personality and be yourself. I regularly run into blogs that aren’t doing much but scraping content from other websites and when I find these blogs I leave them just as quickly as I came. I’ve even written about how these so called ‘bloggers’ aren’t really blogging at all (you can read my rant here, when a blog is not really a blog.)
In this brief article I want to discuss the issue of duplicate content and it’s use on the web. Firstly lets take a look at what duplicate content is. In fact there are two types of duplicate content.
- The first is duplicate content that takes place within your own website. In other words it’s the same information appearing on more than one URL on your domain. This content is not necessarily 100% identical, in many cases it is only ‘considerably similar’.
- The second form of duplicate content can be called ‘Cross-domain-duplicate-content’, this is identical content to that which is on your website appearing elsewhere on the internet on other websites. This can be unintentional, or perhaps caused by scrapers (or maybe you are the one doing the scraping?)
No such thing as a “duplicate content penalty”?!?!
To bring a sense of calm to this discussion, right off the bat I’m going to share an excerpt from Google’s webmaster central blog where they discuss the issue of duplicate content. Many webmasters ask the question “am I being penalized for duplicate content?”. The official google answer (though somewhat vague) is “In most cases, having duplicate content on your site does not mean your site is penalized.” In fact google goes on record to say and I quote, “Let’s put this to bed once and for all, folks: There’s no such thing as a “duplicate content penalty.” At least, not in the way most people mean when they say that.“
Sources: Google Webmaster Blog, deftly dealing with duplicate content. Google Webmaster Blog, duplicate content due to scrapers.
Google also mentions that we should not worry about excerpts or snippets (when you’re quoting someone or another source) as duplicate content. The Google algorithms are much more complex and smarter than we’d all like to believe. As people interested in SEO our ego’s lead us to believe that we can outsmart google, or that sometimes google is penalizing us for things we didn’t even do. This way of looking at SEO is inherently wrong since it fails to take responsibility for the things we CAN control, and that is all of the content on our own website. There was recent debate about the google honeymoon period where webmasters who are seeing their keyword rankings suddenly drop blame it on a google algorithm called the google honeymoon. Blaming a drop in YOUR rankings on google is ignorant, and a cop out. But too stay on course and not go off on this tangent, you can read more here about my theories on the… google honeymoon period.
In essence Google does not penalize a website for duplicate content. They essentially are saying we aren’t going to drop you in the SERPs what we are going to do is filter out the duplicate content so it doesn’t appear in the SERPs at all.
There are websites that have stolen my content, am I affected by a duplicate content penalty?
The biggest fear I think most bloggers have is that their original articles are being stolen and posted on other blogs and that this is affecting their blogs ranking. Not only that, but their content is being stolen which leaves them with a sense of being violated and somewhat powerless to do anything about it. Have no fear, google is here! Google is smart, and they boldly claim that they are able to identify the original article. Google promises “you shouldn’t be very concerned about seeing negative effects on your site’s presence on Google if you notice someone scraping your content.“
Summarizing the duplicate content penalty
Based on the articles I’ve read from the Google Webmaster Blog, and various other webmasters SEO experiences with duplicate content I would still want to encourage everyone to produce only original content. If you are a website owner building niche or affiliate sites and looking for content, at the very least you should be manually re-writing those articles. Put things into your own words, add your own style, add your own experience… wait suddenly you realize you’ve done research and written a whole new article! Good job. There is a lot more that can be discussed surrounding duplicate content, including the issue of duplicate content within your own website. Google reports to you duplicate content they’ve found on your site within webmaster tools, so if you are concerned you should take a look there and read up on what you can do to resolve those issues. The sources cited above contain some great resources for resolving duplicate content issues.
What’s your experience or take on the google duplicate content penalty?
When the Google honeymoon is over, the keyword fight begins!
Posted by Daniel Snyder in Keyword Research, SEO on April 11, 2011
Ah, Google. The Search giant that SEO “experts” around the world love to pretend they understand. As the years go by Google evolves, their search algorithms change, and it becomes apparent that very few really know anything about their complex search algorithms. Google is in fact very cautious about what they say and confirm about the way their search engine works, and some of the more complex theories can only be speculated about. Starting in 2004 the debate about the google sandbox has raged around the web, though it is now generally believed that the sandbox is a myth, and google has more or less denied its existence. It is still not unusual to run into webmasters who believe their site has become ‘lost in the sandbox’. This confusion around the way google operates has led to hundreds of speculative articles and so called SEO Experts who pretend they know what they’re talking about and offer advice based on their speculative opinions.
The Google Sandbox is a myth. What about the google honeymoon?
A recent google phenomenon that I’ve been hearing about is the “Google Honeymoon”. The essence of the google honeymoon is this. New sites are receiving unusually high ranking in the SERPs for their targeted keywords. This temporary honeymoon period can last for an unpredictable period of time (anywhere from 2-8 weeks, so I’ve heard), and after the honeymoon is over the site drops in the SERPs to a more realistic or natural position.
I have read differing opinions on the google honeymoon as individuals speculate on its existence, how it works and what its purpose may be. I have my own opinions as well, but remember it’s ridiculous for anyone to assume they know what google is up to.
Three theories as to why the google honeymoon exists:
1. Google may use the honeymoon as a way to get trending topics or news in to the top of the results pages. Google is assuming that new content is more relevant than older content, so it artificially inflates the position of new content in the SERPs. I think this theory is bogus. Google has clearly communicated over the years that they want to promote quality content. Pushing anything intentionally to the top of the SERPs, especially content that has not yet proven itself or demonstrated that it is authoritative is completely contradictory to google’s traditional modas operandi.
2. The google honeymoon is designed as a method to gather information and statistics such as CTR (click-thru-rate). It’s a quick shot at fame for a new site in order for google to assess whether the content of the site is valuable and whether or not it is matching the keywords and drawing clicks. I think this theory is even more bogus than the first one. Again reiterating my point above, I can simply not see google ever associating themselves with behavioral statistics in this manner. Pushing unproven content to the top of the SERPs is totally against anything google has ever declared publicly.
3. The site is actually ranking naturally, but as google assesses it, the site drops in the SERPs based on a varying number of factors. I agree with this theory the most. By agreeing with this theory I am actually offering up a whole new opinion, and here it is…
The google honeymoon is not a specific part of the google algorithm but rather a natural side effect.
Google is always at work on their top secret search engine algorithms, the most recent “Panda Update” caused many sites to drop severely in the SERPS (sites who according to google are lacking in quality content). There are a ton of speculations about what kind of content google is interested in promoting, but rather than speculating let’s hear from google directly. Google’s goal with search is this “Our goal is to return highly relevant results for every query.”
Why would a site suddenly drop in the SERPs?
- One part of the Panda Update is that Google has knocked sites with too many banners or affiliate ads (links) and seriously dropped their rankings.
- Too much backlinking too soon. These links could appear as unnatural to google and will affect a sites position in the SERPs.
- Not enough variation in anchor text, again google sees this as unnatural.
- Duplicate content. Even spun articles can have tracers in them that google could potentially spot.
The Panda update was all about rewarding sites with original and unique content. Content that google would consider as authoritative and content which is easily classified as highly relevant.
My Experience with the Google Honeymoon Effect
I launched a niche site at the end of February which ranked quite well in its first six weeks. I was targeting 3 primary keywords and 7 longtail keywords, and they were all ranking well, many of them were in the top 10 and a few of them were in the top 3 results. By the way if you think your keywords are doing well, they may not be doing as well as you think, read this article to find out the number one mistake website owners make when assessing their keyword ranking.
The niche domain was brand new and all SEO efforts were undertaken by myself. From the on page SEO to various link building tactics (including web 2.0 properties, social bookmarking, site commenting, obtaining some .edu and .gov backlinks, link wheels etc.). Suddenly at the end of the sites 7th week and in only a 24 hour period of time all my targeted keywords went from their well placed position on the first page to completely out of the top 100. To believe that this is the cause of an algorithm on a timer that suddenly went *ding* and said “your time is up, the honeymoon is over, your site is now going to rank more naturally, hope you enjoyed your five minutes of fame.” is absurd and ridiculous. The drop in the SERPs must be explained more logically, for whatever reason google has determined that the site is not worthy of ranking that well. Perhaps the backlinking methods were far too unnatural for google, and the site has been temporarily ‘penalized’. Perhaps google has determined the content of the site is designed for only one reason, to push a reader onto another website (to generate affiliate sales). Whatever the reason, as a webmaster I can not give up. I don’t expect google will be letting me know what happened any time soon. For now I suppose I’m a recipient victim of what I now call the google honeymoon effect. Though it is a setback, it is not the end of the site. Developing some original content, slowing up on my link building tactics, and ensuring that the built out links are more natural will cause the site to rise back up naturally over time. Remember time is a significant factor in the value and ranking of a site, the older the domain the more established and authoritative a site is considered by google. New domains should anticipate a lot of movement in the SERPs.
Is the google honeymoon an aspect of google’s search algorithms or something far less sinister, and more along the lines of what I propose simply a natural side effect. Sound off: What’s your opinion on the google honeymoon?
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