Search Marketing Post

It seems that these days many people are claiming SEO is changing. With the popularity for social media some are diverting their attention from SEO.

All the recent changes to search engine algorithms, as both Google and Bing admitted they use social media rankings signals into their algorithms. Then it is Google’s Panda Update and Bing’s equivalence to it which focuses on search engines machine learning which focuses on user behaviors and reaction to a website and its content and ranks that website accordingly.

In a nutshell, search engines are going away from traditional ranking factors such as keyword density, Meta tags, and even some linking schemes and looking at more advanced signals to determined ranking such as user behaviors and how they react to a website. While this has promoted many SEOs to change the way they optimize their website and create websites and content for the user not only search engines, I can strongly say the fundamental of search engines are still the same.

SEO Fundamentals Still the Same

It is true that ranking factors have changed as search engines are evolving and becoming better machines to return the most relevant search results to their users, hence focusing more on user signals such as social media and bounce rate and other user experience signals, but the fundamental of search engine optimization are still the same and following the 3C; Code, Content, and Creditability.

It is true that ranking factors have changed as search engines are evolving and becoming better machines to return the most relevant search results to their users, hence focusing more on user signals such as social media and bounce rate and other user experience signals, but the fundamental of search engine optimization are still the same and following the 3C; Code, Content, and Creditability.

Code – Search engines still need you to have a search engine friendly website so they can crawl, index, and rank it better. That is why both Google and Bing have webmaster tools communicating to you all the crawlers’ errors and warnings they have and onsite optimization guidelines that help you better optimize your website for search engines.  Code optimization still matters a lot to Google and Bing. A client that has a Bail Bonds in Los Angeles improved their rankings significantly after they changed their old site dynamic website into an SEO friendly wordpress site, and their organic rankings suddenly jumped because of that.

Content – All SEOs know that content is king. And search engines love good content. And good content isn’t only a text with a bunch of keywords but it is the content users like and react well to and like. That could be anything like text content, images, videos, infographics, etc. Search engines are getting more advanced in determining how to distinguish quality content from poor content by looking at user reactions to the content. They look at user factors such as social media sharing, bounce rate, and inbound links to determined if the content quality. Also Google cares a lot about content freshness and that is why we recommend all businesses to have a business blog. One of our clients, who have a self storage directory, was able to improve organic traffic noticeably by installing a self storage blog.

Credibility – This refers to how credible your website is. And traditionally search engines have looked at backlinks to your website and it’s content to determine credibility of your website and quality of its content.  The better and more quality links you have to your website, the more credible it is. But recent years, search engines are also looking at other signals such as social media signals, and citation of your website as other credibility factors to determine ranking.

In conclusion, while many people think SEO fundamentals have changed, I respectfully yet strongly disagree. SEO fundamentals haven’t changed but SEO rankings have changed as they always have.

I came across Famous Bloggers by total accident. I think I landed here reading one of the marketing article, and then learned that I can do guest posts here and then applied for an account and  started posting after creating my profile.

I like posting on Famous Bloggers because it is a great guest blog community as it helps us grow in all aspect and helps me in particular with the following;

1. Learning: It is probably the most important feature of Famous Blogger. By participating here, I have been learning quite a bit from other bloggers on a various subjects including SEO, business, and other marketing and etc. No matter how much you think you know, you can always learn from other experts even on topics that you already think you are very good at.
2. Networking: Connecting with other bloggers and business professionals to know them can only do well both for your business and yourself individually. And here on Famous Blogger I have had pleasure of meeting a few people online and following them on twitter. I am hoping
3. Self Promotion: Writing for Famous Blogger allows bloggers to promote themselves and their businesses. I have been marketing myself as an SEO consultant in San Diego, which is what I am, and promoting my site accordingly. Also this is helping with link building and SEO is a plus.

Above are just some of the good things I can mention about Famous Blogger.  If you are a blogger in areas of marketing, business, and SEO, I recommend you checking them out.

This is a guest post. The author’s posts are entirely his or her own and may not always reflect the views of Search Marketing Post.

When people are trying to get links, the only thing that is constantly in their head’s is anchor text. Everyone wishes to have the anchor text for the term that they wish to rank for. Take my site for example, Love to Play Bing. I would much rather have the anchor text bingo sites or online bingo, but thinking in this frame of mind is not only unhealthy when it comes to SEO but it will lead to you becoming frustrated when you do not rank.

Natural Linking

Google’s guidelines state: “Only natural links are useful for the indexing and ranking of your site.” Google has automatic algorithms in place that can detect unnatural links to your site such as paid links and links with excessive anchor text. E.g. getting link after link with the anchor bingo site will not necessarily improve your rankings for that keyword as you would think. As your site grows and people link to you naturally, people will link to you with the official site name, not the terms you wish to rank for. This would then suggest that sites with all keyword anchors and no brand name links are not getting any natural links and the links the site does have are mostly unnatural.

If my Mum or Dad started a website tomorrow (let us assume that they are internet savvy) and I asked them to link to my website. They would probably not link to me with the anchor Online Bingo, they would probably use the term Love to Play Bingo. Everyone links to a site with different anchors, but you will find the majority of people will use the official URL name (brand name) or the full URL.

The overall amount of links pointing to your site and the quality of these sites go towards your overall rankings, it is not just about keyword anchor text. Getting brand name links for your site will actually increase your rankings for the Keywords you rank for. People are lead to believe that building an x amount more than the site has at the number one spot for that key phrase will instantly put you at number one, but this is far from the truth. The search engines are all about natural links and anything that do that makes your site look unnatural is not doing you any favours.

Building a Brand

One day your business maybe brandable and if you are able to brand your online business then your online business will be more a success. Building brand name links to your site will spread the brand awareness of your site, more people will know you for your business name and you will rank for your business name.

Ask yourself some of the following:

What would my Mum and Dad link to me using? (Infact ask them)

Would you consider a site with no brand links to be a site that gets natural links?

Do big brands rank well in Google? (I wonder why)

Do you trust a site that has a brand name?

The issue of folder versus subdomain is an ongoing discussion among SEOs. And question often arises, if you are installing a blog on your website, would you put it under subfolder or subdomain? General tip is that if you are producing the content in house, and you are sure the content is high quality and unique, the homepage is fine. But if you can’t ensure the quality of posts, or you allow guests posts where there will be chance of duplication, then put it on subdomain to stay away from Panda penalty hit.That is what we recommended for one of our clients, to install their self storage blog on a subdomain because they were allowing guest post.

According to a post written by San Diego SEO Consultant Al Sefati, Pharmaceutical SEO is one of the most under developed industries for SEO and there are a lot of potentials for both SEOs and pharmaceutical companies to explore opportunities.

Traditionally these industries use old methods of advertising such as print and etc, but search number seems to be quite high for pharmaceutical related industries so there are a lot o potentials for markets and companies to look into.

Many SEO experts recommend that turn off their comments because it could hurt then in SEO.  One of my own favorite SEO experts whom I have been following ever since I got into SEO, Michael Gray, said last year in April he wrote a post on why should everyone should turn off blog comments and his reasoning seem to make a lot of sense to me but I believe that there is more good than bad in allowing comments so I like to recommend that bloggers keep their comments on (but closely moderate them);

1. Google freshness Algorithm – Google’s recent freshness algorithm update looks for fresh content on pages and it may rank pages with fresh content higher and to keep a post fresh, you want to allow comments as they are a form of user generated content (USG) and could keep page updated and possibly ranked better.
2. Overall Google Authority – Other SEOs may disagree with me but I do believe Google looks a blog comments as one of their many signals to look at a blog authority. The blogs with a lot comments could send signal to Google that blog is writing quality content that users like and that could help in blogs overall authority and ranking.
3. Possible Long tail Traffic – I have gotten some unique visits to my site because of my blog posts comments. For example once I was talking about Apple products but I never mentioned the word “iPhone 5” but one someone who commented on that post did. As the result I saw traffic a few unique organic visits for iPhone5.
4. Returning Visits – Allowing comments on your blog could help create a following on your blog as it encourages readers to participate and leave feedback.  I personally like to leave comments on blog posts and I keep returning to those blog posts to see if the writer or someone replied to my comment or just to see others’ comments.
5. You can learn from comments –  I expect a few comment for this post and there maybe some who agree and some who disagree and I am sure I can learn a thing or two from everyone.
6. Potential business opportunity: Let’s say you write a blog post about an upcoming product for your company and you want to get user reaction about it and let them know when it is available. What better way than letting them to leave comments? By allowing comments you can get feedback and also let them know when the product is available. It can also hype things up for you.

Again I totally understand why many SEOs suggest against allowing comments (spam, google’s timestamp, etc) but I see more positives than negatives in allowing comment so at the end of the day, what matters is those organic traffic that otherwise you would be paying for so let’s keep

This post was written by Al Sefati from Bold Array SEO team.

If you are a small or medium size business, chances are that you will have a very small SEO budget (if any at all). A question was asked from me that what if a business had $1000 to spend on SEO, where they should spend on?

While that is a very general question to which it requires a very specific answer, I advise all my SEO clients to spend their limited SEO budget carefully taking care of first things first. And that is to follow the SEO’s 3Cs rule from top to bottom:

Code – This refers to your website code being SEO friendly. Check out all onsite SEO factors such as URL structure, navigation architectures, internal linking, sitemaps in webmaster tools, and all the good onsite stuff.

Content – This refers to quality of your content. Create quality content that interests you as the user and a content that is also SEO friendly meaning it contains all targeted keywords naturally embedded within your content.  Also keep the content fresh. A blog usually help with that. Just make sure you have an editorial plan for your blog as many companies install a blog but fail to make good use out of it. For blogs, think user first, then search engines.

Credibility – This refers to your websites popularity and rankings. And the only way you can increase that is to promote it in all aspects using all the tools out there to attract links to your website using social media, press releases, article submission, and all the other link building and self promotion methods in order to get your website some credibility.

So invest your dollars getting your code fixed first. Usually if you have a new website following latest web development methods, chances are that you already your website is pretty SEO friendly then you can invest into content and promoting your content.

We came across a very post on practical guide on link building for small business we endorse you read. It goes over some white hat and gray hat tactics that can help your small business get some links and improve your rankings. Article submission, press releases, guest blogging, link exchange, three way link exchange, blog commenting, social media links, blogger network, forums and online community, are to name some of the white hat tactics.

The writer also mentioned some methods such as paid reviews, three way links, and link buying for satellite sites as gray hat tactics that some businesses use to improve their rankings.