Realizing SEO Benefits Quickly Through Blogging

Quick results in search marketing are only possible with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, right? Wrong. The advent of blogging, as well as recent advances to search engine algorithms, has narrowed the gap between PPC and search engine optimization (SEO) to mere hours. With PPC, there is instant gratification as your advertisement will appear in search results almost immediately after your campaign is activated. However, this same advantage can now be seen in SEO.

First, let's take a look at some common reasons why SEO projects have not been carried out in the past.

Companies don't want to abandon tech investments (e.g. content management systems and Web publishing tools)

Lack of budget dedicated to SEO

May take a while to demonstrate ROI

Blogging addresses each of these problems.

SEO best practices are already in place. Blogging software by default includes a few basic but important SEO practices by using proper Titles, headlines, URLs, and internal linking structure. Search engines also like sites that have fresh content, which can give blogs great influence over search results.

Recent search engine algorithm changes boost the visibility of blogs. An experiment by Ryan Durk took advantage of temporary changes in Google's logo linking to the search results page for "January 1 TCP/IP". It shows two things: the speed by which a new blog is indexed and the short time between your blog getting indexed and it appearing high in search results.

Blogs are inexpensive and easy to setup. A new blog can be created in a matter of minutes with little technical knowledge. Blog creation is free in many cases, often with a nominal monthly fee for additional features.

Blogging is great for companies that are not ready to make the larger SEO investment or are worried about abandoning a CMS in which they have already invested. Blogging can be used as a proof of concept that shows that SEO can deliver results. Use of blogging software delays the larger discussion of SEO projects that are potentially more time-consuming and require a larger investment that reap longer term benefits. Setting up a blog is inexpensive and doesn't force you to abandon or modify your existing IT investments.

Then get people to notice your blog.

Conduct keyword research Creating a blog is just the first step. Keyword research can be the difference between a highly popular, authoritative blog and a blog that no one knows exists.

Since everyone competes on the most popular words, try blogging about slightly less-competitive topics, so your site has the ability to rank for those terms. There are some great tools out there that help facilitate this process of identifying writing topics that other sites aren't necessarily targeting, yet will drive traffic.

If you're just getting started with blogging, write about a subject where you have expertise that you feel will interest your audience. Once you reach a critical mass of blog posts, take a step back and analyze how people are finding your blog and use that information to guide your editorial calendar.

Utilize social media and pinging. In addition to keyword research, it is important to promote the blog using social media tools that increase the visibility of your blog and generate inbound links to your domain. Be sure to utilize pinging services to notify aggregation services of new content on your blog.

Customize the blog template. It is also important to link to your new blog from the Homepage of your main Web site to make it easier for search engine spiders to discover it. Often times, the default template needs to be tweaked slightly for maximum SEO benefit. For instance, make sure your blog Permalink uses meaningful anchor text and not "www.yourdomain.com/blog/?p=456"

Blogging may not be the long-term solution for fixing a broken site, but it will get your foot in the door for SEO, deliver results in the short term, and facilitate the process of getting buy-in for full-scale, long-term SEO projects for the rest of your Web site.

Source: http://blogs.mediapost.com

Google's Cat Out Of The Bag

In what can only be considered a devastating leak of information from Google HQ in Mountain View, a confirmed but as yet publicly anonymous executive from Google has leaked papers detailing some of the key fundamentals to Google's link value calculation system. The announcement by Google earlier today details some of the contents of this information as they work hard to minimize the effect that this will have on their algorithm as SEO's around the world scramble get their hands on it. The news, first leaked by SEO-guru Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Land, comes as a shock of sorts and leaves SEO's scratching their heads figuring out what to do. There has been startled reaction from the community but first - let's cover a few of the key points (we'll provide a link to more thorough information below).

The leaked information confirmed and illuminated the following information:

• The PageRank we see in the green bar has no bearing on how a site will rank. This information is generated internally based on user expectations and not as a ranking factor.
• The weighing of factors occurs in the following order: Google's internal PageRank, position on page, number of links on the page, anchor text, relevancy. I found it VERY interesting that trust is not yet a calculation on link worth though this may be an omission in the information provided.
• Reciprocal linking is detectable and while it is not penalized, no value is given for the links. A limitation outlined in this is the Google apparently has little ability to to detect legitimate linking sites that happen to link to each other.
• Paid links are not detectable. There is currently no architecture for the automatic detection of paid links. Google relies on reporting by SEO's and webmasters.
• There's a lot more in there - this is just what I've gleaned at the time of this writing. There's a link below to the documents themselves.
  

I had a chance to have a very brief chat with Matt Cutts (quality control guru from Google) who has told us he will be responding on his blog once more information on the leak becomes available (and I'm sure when he's given the OK by the Gods of Google to talk). His response to this leak was, "... this is obviously an issue we are going to have to deal with quickly. We expect SEO's to take quick advantage of this information and a strategy is being developed to deal with this and make adjustments to the algorithm shortly." You can monitor Matt's comments on his blog and a big thanks to him for taking a moment out of his understandably hectic schedule to answer a couple questions for me.

On the other side of the coin sit the SEO's. While we're all obviously reading all the information we can on the leak - we do so with some concern. In an email from Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz he noted, "You might think this is a great opportunity for SEO's but it's not - in fact this is one of the worst things that could happen. All the information we're all reading will be invalid by the time we could employ the tactics and we're about to head into a period of significant instability in regards to Google's rankings . Not only do we have to fear for the rankings we've worked hard to attain over the years - we also have to deal with rankings that will be in a constant state of flux over the next few months. Clients are NOT going to be happy." Good call Rand and you can monitor his comments on the subject on their blog at http://www.seomoz.org/blog.

This is obviously an issue you're going to want to research this issue - there's a lot more about this and links to the documents on the cnet site at http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9907571-36.html. Well, the article is actually about Google's April Fool's Day joke but we think ours was fun too. :) Enjoy the day. ;)
Source: http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/

SEARCH ENGINE STRATEGIES FOR WEBMASTERS

The Top Ten SEO Mistakes

It is possible to learn from both good and bad examples. Usually I write about what you "should" do to optimize your website, but now I will highlight some of the things that you should "not" do when you prepare your web pages. This list is not in any order of importance as all the points should be taken seriously if you want your site to do well in the search engine queries for your main keywords.

1. Using a "Splash Page".

I think you have seen sites where you go to the main page and all you see is a beautiful picture with the two words of text saying "enter here." The picture is beautiful, no doubt, but this is a disaster when it comes to search engine optimization. Search engine robots are looking for text, but there is no text on a "splash page." The main page of any website is the most important page, and it has the best chance of being optimized. If you use it to place a pretty picture, you are throwing away this chance. Search engines don't appreciate splash pages, and many human users too are annoyed by having to click to finally view the content. Avoid splash pages at all costs.


2. Putting Important Text, or even all the Text as an Image.

I have seen clever web designers produce a beautiful web page that has images and text combined to look like a normal web page. However if you try to put your cursor over the text and select it, you can't do it because there is no text. The whole page has been rendered as a jpg or gif image. It looks good to the viewer, but the search engine robot doesn't find any searchable text. Be careful if you are using some automatic web design programs which turn text into images. Also while it is quite extreme to turn an entire page into an image, you should also avoid changing your important headlines into gif images.

3. Not Putting Title And Description Tags on Pages.

Have you ever visited a web page that showed the words "new page" in the line at the top of the browser? The website owner forgot to put a title tag on the page. The title tag, which is in the head section of the document and is put between the items is treated by search engines as one of the most important indicators about the content of a page. If you leave out the title tag or don't pay much importance to what you put there, then you are wasting a good optimization opportunity, as well as showing a sloppy kind of site construction.

Similarly, the description tag is often shown in search engine results pages (SERPS) as the description of your site. If you make a compelling description, it helps people to click through to your site. Ideally you want your site to be well ranked, but a high ranking is not enough. You need people to click through once they see your site's listing, and a good description can help you out.

4. Putting the Same Title and Description Tags on all the Pages.

Each of your pages is unique and has a special function, and you should let search engines and users know about this by changing the title and description tags to match the content on that particular page. It is not possible to optimize one single page for many different search terms, but it is possible to optimize each of the pages of your site for one or two important search phrases. If you take the time to make unique title and description tags for each of your pages, you can take advantage of this possibility and rank well for several search terms.

5. Trying to get by with a "Brochure" Site.

If you want to be the top site in your particular field, then you have to deserve it. The best way to deserve is to offer a good amount of quality content. You cannot get by with just putting a few pages with general descriptions about your company. For example, if you are selling electronic items, then back up your offering with reviews and helpful information for the consumers. This will make your site a valuable resource. Human visitors, and search engines alike, will soon recognize you as an authoritative source of information in your field.

6. Redesigning an Existing Site and Neglecting the Old URLs.

Your old website may have looked bad, but it had traffic and search engines indexed those pages and people are finding those pages based on the information that the search engine robots compiled from them. If you redesign your site, and completely toss out the old urls, without compensating for it, then you are tossing away all the traffic you built up before, because search engines will be sending people to pages that no longer exist.

There is a way to avoid this. If it is possible, stick to the same structure that your old site had and retain the same url addresses for the new pages. If this is not possible then the best thing to do is to make "permanent redirects." For this you will have to make a .htaccess file (a text file with instructions on the functioning of the site) . This file will tell search engines to permanently redirect traffic from an old url to a new url. When this file is in place if anyone types in the old url, he or she will be permanently redirected to the new location. Similarly the search engines will soon change their listings from the old urls to the new urls.

7. Not Using Local Keywords.

If you have just set up a web design business, don't think that you are going to be able to get a first page listing for the term "web design" or "web designer." The competition is too great and you are just starting out. But if you live in Missoula, Montana, then it is possible to get a good listing for "Web design, Missoula, Montana." So, put those geographical terms in your title tag, your description tag and the text on your page. Wherever possible optimize your site for local and regional keywords and you will stand a much better chance of being found by people who need your products or services.

8. Trying to do "Branding" in the Title Tag.

Everyone likes to put the name of their company first and the title tags of most sites reflects this. The first thing you see in the upper left hand corner of the blue line at the top of the browser is the name of the company. But if no one knows about your company, then no one is searching for your name. People are searching for answers to their needs, not to find you! If you can, avoid the temptation to put your company name as the first (and for search engines) and most important word in your title tag. Rather, put the most important keyword that people will use when searching for a site such as yours. You can do your branding elsewhere on the page (with your logo and supporting text) but don't try to do it in the title tag unless you are already quite famous.

9. Trying to Trick the Search Engines with Hidden Text, Cloaking or Doorway Pages.

If I had to prioritize the list, then I guess this is the biggest mistake you can make. Instead of putting energy into deceiving the search engines, you should use the same enthusiasm and skill to construct web pages that offer solid content to visitors. In the past people used to put hidden text, stuffed with keywords using font coloring that matched a background, or construct doorway pages or even pages with code that tried to deceive the search engines. These methods don't work and can get you banned from search engine indices. If anyone proposes to help you with "optimization" methods such as this, then you should avoid it like a plague.

10. Linking to "Bad Neighborhoods".

You can't get into trouble if a questionable or substandard site links to you, but according to Google, you can be penalized if you link to what they call bad neighborhoods. These are spam sites or other sites that have a bad reputation. So, don't accept offers to link with any and all websites. Visit the proposed link partner and see if the site is ranked, as opposed to being banned, and if there are any other issues that might make it questionable. If you have doubt, then don't.

Avoid these mistakes, and concentrate on providing informative and interesting content and you will succeed in your online endeavors.

Source : www.seo-news.com