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Peer Review: SEO Best Practices for Duplicate Content

On January 25, 2010, In SEO, by Danny Dover

This post is part of an ongoing series where my co-workers and I are working to build a freely available resource center of up-to-date SEO best practices. As we write this content, we are submitting them for peer review so that everyone on the Internet can benefit from collective intelligence. You can read more about the SEO Knowledge Center here.

This weeks proposed SEO best practice deals with duplicate content. It is my belief that duplicate content is the single biggest SEO problem on the Internet. (Well that and Myspace layouts.) On the page linked below, Jen Lopez discusses what duplicate content is, how it gets created and how to get rid of it. Hopefully, this page will help all of you combat this problem.

Please let us know if there is something we should add, remove or modify. We are also open to suggestions on how to design better robots. As you will see on the duplicate content page below, Rand‘s robot mock-up skills are like a mixture of Avatar CGI and Shakespearean writing but without any of the talent or impressiveness (or iambic pentameter for that matter).

Duplicate Content

Remember, this page is just a work in progress. I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve it. Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by Danny Dover

This post is part of an ongoing series where my co-workers and I are working to build a freely available resource center of up-to-date SEO best practices. As we write this content, we are submitting them for peer review so that everyone on the Internet can benefit from collective intelligence. You can read more about the SEO Knowledge Center here.

This weeks proposed SEO best practice deals with duplicate content. It is my belief that duplicate content is the single biggest SEO problem on the Internet. (Well that and Myspace layouts.) On the page linked below, Jen Lopez discusses what duplicate content is, how it gets created and how to get rid of it. Hopefully, this page will help all of you combat this problem.

Please let us know if there is something we should add, remove or modify. We are also open to suggestions on how to design better robots. As you will see on the duplicate content page below, Rand‘s robot mock-up skills are like a mixture of Avatar CGI and Shakespearean writing but without any of the talent or impressiveness (or iambic pentameter for that matter).

Duplicate Content

Remember, this page is just a work in progress. I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to improve it. Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Do you like this post? Yes No

Offline Reading List: Magazines and Books for SEOs

On January 24, 2010, In SEO, by RobOusbey

Posted by RobOusbey

This week, I’d like to make suggestions for a ‘reading list‘ to help SEOs, and others who work online, particularly with website strategies.

But this list isn’t going to be blogs, post and online articles, oh no. These suggestions are entirely offline. We’re going into dead tree mode with eleven books and two magazines. Some of these suggestions you may want to flick through, some you may want to read cover to cover. Others will be suitable for suggesting to other people within your organisation.

There’s no intention that everybody should read all these books (they’re spread over many topics) and my list is far from exhaustive. I’ll welcome your feedback and further recommendations in the comments.

(NB: This post links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk to help you find more about the books mentioned. I’ve used affiliate links, and any revenue generated will be donated to good causes through a general disaster/emergency fund.)

Analytics and Data

Web Analytics in an Hour a Day – Avinash Kaushik

This book is regarded as required reading for anyone who needs to understand the concepts behind web analytics and how to properly assess and understand them. Beyond the very basics about collecting analytics data, the book focuses on how to truly understand how it applies to your website’s goals, and using analytics to collect actionable insights that will improve your website.

(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Information Dashboard Design – Stephen Few

This book isn’t directly related to SEO or web strategy, but since reading it, I’ve already had two opportunities to use its advice on effectively presenting data. Even if you’re comfortable creating tables, graphs and charts, the hugely practical and highly actionable advice about combining data into ‘dashboards’ is worth your time to acquire.

Whether you work with sites that need to present data in a way that’s appealing to users, or if you need to produce a dashboard of analytics and search data for use internally (perhaps gleaned from Avinash’s book) then you’ll be able to communicate the information more effectively after taking advice from here. (You’ll also start spotting the terrible data presentation mistakes that others make, but I can’t help you there unfortunately.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Usability & Testing

Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy – Steve Krug

Krug’s famous book about design and usability is one of those classic texts that offers the whole premise within the four words of the title, and then goes on to spend the book showing you how to build that premise into your design philosophy. Get a flavour of the author’s style and keen understanding in the sample chapter, How we really use the web.

Krug describes the first book as being about how to think about usability, whereas Rocket Surgery Made Easy is about how to do it – covering the process of improving web site usability though user testing. It’s highly recommended that before you start designing test and recruiting users, you give this book a read; if you’re not planning any user testing just yet, then read it anyway to remind you why you should.

(Buy ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
(Buy ‘Rocket Surgery Made Easy’ online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer – Bryan Eisenberg & John Quarto-von Tivadar

Complementing Krug’s books, this text focuses on using Google Website Optimizer to set up tests for Conversion Rate Optimisation. Beyond the simple technical aspects of how to run a test with the tool, it teaches how to use an understanding of the buying process and creating strong offering to make websites more powerful.

One reviewer on Amazon was given a copy of the book at SES, and mentioned: "In one recent test, we used the principles learned from the book such as persuasion architecture to setup a test in only an hour that increased lead generation on a high volume ecommerce site by 51%"
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Search Marketing

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville

How does a book originally written over a decade ago make it into this list? Because when O’Reilly publishes a book by these authors, on a topic so important to the way information is published online and understood / consumed by visitors, the text is going to stand the test of time.

Like many of these suggestions, the book doesn’t just float at a high level, but gets down to ‘brass tacks’ with detailed discussion about designing and implementing IA on websites, and dedicating a significant chapter to choosing whether and how to implement on-site search on a site. (Recommendation by Dr Pete.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

The Art of SEO – Eric Enge, Jessie Stricchiola, Rand Fishkin and Stephan Spencer

Despite the incredible ongoing changes in the field of SEO, an ‘all-star cast’ (including SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin) has managed to put together this excellent reference book for search marketers. Before page 50, the authors have covered the basics of how search engines crawl & index the web and search ranking factors; it goes onto cover the technical aspects of SEO, keyword research, competitor analysis & benchmarking, linkbuilding, vertical search and monitoring results.

Most appealing about this book is the understanding that the authors bring from their experience managing SEO campaigns in the real world – such as in the chapter dedicated to building SEO teams, and knowing when or how to appoint a search agency.

The main reason I sound like I’m raving about the book is the same reason you should read it: flattery. Rand dedicated this book to you, the members of the SEO community.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Search Marketing Standard

Recommended by RobBothan, Search Marketing Standard published a quarterly magazine for the search industry. They promise: "Stop stressing out over the avalanche of marketing advice from online sources and let us filter the noise for you."

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini

This is a classic book, which chooses to pitch persuasion as a science, rather than an art. The author is a professor of psychology, so this is perhaps expected, but the rigour of explanation in the examples (many from Caldini’s own observations) will help you develop new, more persuasive ways of influencing the visitors to your sites.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Management & Implementation

Good to Great – Jim Collins

I’ve never before come across a book that is essentially a write up of a research project; it’s particularly special as the research conclusions are highly valuable, and can be actioned. The premise of the work was to: identify concepts which great companies had in common, but that were not implemented by any (or many) companies that were simply ‘good.’

You can read more about what these concepts turned out to be, and see how Rand tested their application within SEOmoz in his 2007 post, Asking the Tough Questions or a similar post by Will, from Distilled’s perspective.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Getting Things Done – David Allen

An outstanding book that proposes a workflow management system which would seem highly radical to many people with an established system, and terribly common sense to others. The book then leads you into a method for implementing the GTD setup.

From my perspective, the most important message (but one that plays second fiddle to much of the book’s other content) is that your mind is excellent at a certain type of work (creative thinking, problem solving, etc) and shouldn’t be fettered with other tasks (remember to call that client tomorrow, try to come up with some blog post ideas etc) which can be devolved to a trusted system.

You know when you put things by the door, so that you remember to take them with you when you next leave the house? This book provides a way of making sure that your whole life runs that way.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Agile Project Management with Scrum – Ken Schwaber

Ken Schwaber is one of the authors of the ‘Agile Manifesto’ which outlined the principles behind the methodology known as ‘agile software development’. His ‘Scrum’ process – described in detail in this book – uses a series of relatively fast iterations, typically month-long ‘sprints’ between releasing product improvements.

For people who don’t like structures and systems that may introduce additional bureaucracy as a barrier to work, the system may sound terrifying (particularly the formal daily meetings) but trust me: once implemented, Scrum reduces almost every barrier between finding out what needs to be done and actually doing it.

Though designed for software development, the principles can be applied to any product or service that can benefit from incremental improvements (and with a bit of creativity, I think this could easily apply to the output of a great deal of organisations.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Day to Day

Wired

Wired (at Wired.com and Wired.co.uk) is a monthly magazine, covering many facets of ‘technology’, from gadgets to online-strategy. Its blend of creativity and informity will help you keep on top of technological trends and can also spark ideas, inspire design themes and help as a seed for linkbait concepts.

That their staff have coined terms such as ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘the long tail’ gives an idea of the impact the magazine has had on the internet marketing industry; reading it every month is the only way to make sure that you’re using their next bit of lingo, before it hits the big time.

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home – by David Shipley & Will Schwalbe

Various people have written about how to manage email as part of your daily work life, but this book talks about the specifics of style and writing in the medium. It should help you create better understood, more expressive emails. Sam suggested this book; he said "It was recommended by an e-mail marketer friend and it changed the way I write (and read) e-mails. (…) Really useful."
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Do you like this post? Yes No

Posted by RobOusbey

This week, I’d like to make suggestions for a ‘reading list‘ to help SEOs, and others who work online, particularly with website strategies.

But this list isn’t going to be blogs, post and online articles, oh no. These suggestions are entirely offline. We’re going into dead tree mode with eleven books and two magazines. Some of these suggestions you may want to flick through, some you may want to read cover to cover. Others will be suitable for suggesting to other people within your organisation.

There’s no intention that everybody should read all these books (they’re spread over many topics) and my list is far from exhaustive. I’ll welcome your feedback and further recommendations in the comments.

(NB: This post links to Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk to help you find more about the books mentioned. I’ve used affiliate links, and any revenue generated will be donated to good causes through a general disaster/emergency fund.)

Analytics and Data

Web Analytics in an Hour a Day – Avinash Kaushik

This book is regarded as required reading for anyone who needs to understand the concepts behind web analytics and how to properly assess and understand them. Beyond the very basics about collecting analytics data, the book focuses on how to truly understand how it applies to your website’s goals, and using analytics to collect actionable insights that will improve your website.

(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Information Dashboard Design – Stephen Few

This book isn’t directly related to SEO or web strategy, but since reading it, I’ve already had two opportunities to use its advice on effectively presenting data. Even if you’re comfortable creating tables, graphs and charts, the hugely practical and highly actionable advice about combining data into ‘dashboards’ is worth your time to acquire.

Whether you work with sites that need to present data in a way that’s appealing to users, or if you need to produce a dashboard of analytics and search data for use internally (perhaps gleaned from Avinash’s book) then you’ll be able to communicate the information more effectively after taking advice from here. (You’ll also start spotting the terrible data presentation mistakes that others make, but I can’t help you there unfortunately.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Usability & Testing

Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy – Steve Krug

Krug’s famous book about design and usability is one of those classic texts that offers the whole premise within the four words of the title, and then goes on to spend the book showing you how to build that premise into your design philosophy. Get a flavour of the author’s style and keen understanding in the sample chapter, How we really use the web.

Krug describes the first book as being about how to think about usability, whereas Rocket Surgery Made Easy is about how to do it – covering the process of improving web site usability though user testing. It’s highly recommended that before you start designing test and recruiting users, you give this book a read; if you’re not planning any user testing just yet, then read it anyway to remind you why you should.

(Buy ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)
(Buy ‘Rocket Surgery Made Easy’ online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer – Bryan Eisenberg & John Quarto-von Tivadar

Complementing Krug’s books, this text focuses on using Google Website Optimizer to set up tests for Conversion Rate Optimisation. Beyond the simple technical aspects of how to run a test with the tool, it teaches how to use an understanding of the buying process and creating strong offering to make websites more powerful.

One reviewer on Amazon was given a copy of the book at SES, and mentioned: "In one recent test, we used the principles learned from the book such as persuasion architecture to setup a test in only an hour that increased lead generation on a high volume ecommerce site by 51%"
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Search Marketing

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville

How does a book originally written over a decade ago make it into this list? Because when O’Reilly publishes a book by these authors, on a topic so important to the way information is published online and understood / consumed by visitors, the text is going to stand the test of time.

Like many of these suggestions, the book doesn’t just float at a high level, but gets down to ‘brass tacks’ with detailed discussion about designing and implementing IA on websites, and dedicating a significant chapter to choosing whether and how to implement on-site search on a site. (Recommendation by Dr Pete.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

The Art of SEO – Eric Enge, Jessie Stricchiola, Rand Fishkin and Stephan Spencer

Despite the incredible ongoing changes in the field of SEO, an ‘all-star cast’ (including SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin) has managed to put together this excellent reference book for search marketers. Before page 50, the authors have covered the basics of how search engines crawl & index the web and search ranking factors; it goes onto cover the technical aspects of SEO, keyword research, competitor analysis & benchmarking, linkbuilding, vertical search and monitoring results.

Most appealing about this book is the understanding that the authors bring from their experience managing SEO campaigns in the real world – such as in the chapter dedicated to building SEO teams, and knowing when or how to appoint a search agency.

The main reason I sound like I’m raving about the book is the same reason you should read it: flattery. Rand dedicated this book to you, the members of the SEO community.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Search Marketing Standard

Recommended by RobBothan, Search Marketing Standard published a quarterly magazine for the search industry. They promise: "Stop stressing out over the avalanche of marketing advice from online sources and let us filter the noise for you."

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini

This is a classic book, which chooses to pitch persuasion as a science, rather than an art. The author is a professor of psychology, so this is perhaps expected, but the rigour of explanation in the examples (many from Caldini’s own observations) will help you develop new, more persuasive ways of influencing the visitors to your sites.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Management & Implementation

Good to Great – Jim Collins

I’ve never before come across a book that is essentially a write up of a research project; it’s particularly special as the research conclusions are highly valuable, and can be actioned. The premise of the work was to: identify concepts which great companies had in common, but that were not implemented by any (or many) companies that were simply ‘good.’

You can read more about what these concepts turned out to be, and see how Rand tested their application within SEOmoz in his 2007 post, Asking the Tough Questions or a similar post by Will, from Distilled’s perspective.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Getting Things Done – David Allen

An outstanding book that proposes a workflow management system which would seem highly radical to many people with an established system, and terribly common sense to others. The book then leads you into a method for implementing the GTD setup.

From my perspective, the most important message (but one that plays second fiddle to much of the book’s other content) is that your mind is excellent at a certain type of work (creative thinking, problem solving, etc) and shouldn’t be fettered with other tasks (remember to call that client tomorrow, try to come up with some blog post ideas etc) which can be devolved to a trusted system.

You know when you put things by the door, so that you remember to take them with you when you next leave the house? This book provides a way of making sure that your whole life runs that way.
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Agile Project Management with Scrum – Ken Schwaber

Ken Schwaber is one of the authors of the ‘Agile Manifesto’ which outlined the principles behind the methodology known as ‘agile software development’. His ‘Scrum’ process – described in detail in this book – uses a series of relatively fast iterations, typically month-long ‘sprints’ between releasing product improvements.

For people who don’t like structures and systems that may introduce additional bureaucracy as a barrier to work, the system may sound terrifying (particularly the formal daily meetings) but trust me: once implemented, Scrum reduces almost every barrier between finding out what needs to be done and actually doing it.

Though designed for software development, the principles can be applied to any product or service that can benefit from incremental improvements (and with a bit of creativity, I think this could easily apply to the output of a great deal of organisations.)
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Day to Day

Wired

Wired (at Wired.com and Wired.co.uk) is a monthly magazine, covering many facets of ‘technology’, from gadgets to online-strategy. Its blend of creativity and informity will help you keep on top of technological trends and can also spark ideas, inspire design themes and help as a seed for linkbait concepts.

That their staff have coined terms such as ‘crowdsourcing’ and ‘the long tail’ gives an idea of the impact the magazine has had on the internet marketing industry; reading it every month is the only way to make sure that you’re using their next bit of lingo, before it hits the big time.

Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home – by David Shipley & Will Schwalbe

Various people have written about how to manage email as part of your daily work life, but this book talks about the specifics of style and writing in the medium. It should help you create better understood, more expressive emails. Sam suggested this book; he said "It was recommended by an e-mail marketer friend and it changed the way I write (and read) e-mails. (…) Really useful."
(Buy online from: Amazon US or Amazon UK.)

Do you like this post? Yes No

Disabling Right Clicking Should Not Hurt Your Google Ranking & SEO

On January 21, 2010, In SEO, by rustybrick

A new HighRankings Forum thread asks if there is any downside in terms of SEO for using JavaScript that disables the ability to right-click on the page. The thread asks:

One of my company’s sites has right-click functions disabled (yes, I realize this doesn’t really stop people from stealing content – it wasn’t my choice). I’ve noticed when I use a spider emulator (seo-browser.com) that our image alt tags appear to be invisible to the spiders. I can see the alt tags on the actual site, and I’ve verified that they are in the code, but they don’t seem to show up for spiders. Could this be caused by our right-click disabling?

Most people in the thread say that it should have no impact on spiders crawling the site.

I then saw an older thread from Google Webmaster Help where Googler, JohnMu, said the same thing. He said and I bolded the key point:

Personally, I find the use of right-click-blocking JavaScript slightly annoying because there are many legitimate reasons why you might want to use the context menu (eg to bookmark the page) and it doesn’t really stop people from viewing the source (Ctrl-U brings it up if you don’t want to use the main menu). That said, this is not something that would bother Googlebot .

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum & Google Webmaster Help.

A new HighRankings Forum thread asks if there is any downside in terms of SEO for using JavaScript that disables the ability to right-click on the page. The thread asks:

One of my company’s sites has right-click functions disabled (yes, I realize this doesn’t really stop people from stealing content – it wasn’t my choice). I’ve noticed when I use a spider emulator (seo-browser.com) that our image alt tags appear to be invisible to the spiders. I can see the alt tags on the actual site, and I’ve verified that they are in the code, but they don’t seem to show up for spiders. Could this be caused by our right-click disabling?

Most people in the thread say that it should have no impact on spiders crawling the site.

I then saw an older thread from Google Webmaster Help where Googler, JohnMu, said the same thing. He said and I bolded the key point:

Personally, I find the use of right-click-blocking JavaScript slightly annoying because there are many legitimate reasons why you might want to use the context menu (eg to bookmark the page) and it doesn’t really stop people from viewing the source (Ctrl-U brings it up if you don’t want to use the main menu). That said, this is not something that would bother Googlebot .

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum & Google Webmaster Help.

Build Your Online Presence, One Thing at a Time

On January 21, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

Search engine optimization is not a dash of this and a pinch of that anymore. These days if you are trying to figure out a road map you are already taking the wrong approach. The right approach is fist analyzing every possible communication vehicle online for your website. Find all the national websites where the [...]

Search engine optimization is not a dash of this and a pinch of that anymore. These days if you are trying to figure out a road map you are already taking the wrong approach. The right approach is fist analyzing every possible communication vehicle online for your website. Find all the national websites where the masses are visiting and then find all the smaller niche sites and become visible in all of them.

Here are some things that might be obvious that people over look sometimes that can help your overall online presence and SEO efforts:

• Free Business Profiles: There are many different free business profiles where you can list your business and have a nicely robust business profile with a link to your website that can help businesses move along with new traffic.

• Video Sharing Websites: These days you can launch a relatively inexpensive company video using a variety of online tools. A short forty five second video you can push through all the video sharing sites will tremendously help your SEO efforts over time. Not to mention the video could find its way into search results if optimized correctly.

• Social Networking Profiles: Many people don’t approach this as a source of link building but in reality it does help your overall SEO efforts. The link that the profile gives you allows for communication to the search engines to let them know that you are a legitimate business. Once you start using your social profiles the search engines will understand even more that you are truly trying to market your website with a marketing hat and for this you will be rewarded over time.

• Blog Comments: If you come across a blog post that is relevant to your business make sure to leave a comment behind that is educational and also informative and ads to the blog post. There has been some talk recently if Google will eventually make a change regarding if leaving blog post comments are beneficial. If they are sending traffic to your website even with no link power they are still beneficial regardless. Realize that links send traffic to your website.

When in doubt apply almost every possible communication tool to your business you can find. Some will work well and some won’t but it is important to have every angle covered. Search engine marketing requires you to really blanket yourself across as many locations as possible to really get good visibility within your industry.

Study on Google Personalized Search & Re-Ranking Shows Minor SEO Changes

On January 20, 2010, In SEO, by rustybrick

In December, Google announced they will be personalizing all Google results by default. SEOs rightfully were a bit on edge after that announcement, but we did link to an old study on how personalized results impact rankings, overall.

The study has been revised and posted at the Huomah Blog. I won’t go through all the points, but the conclusion is that currently, the personalized changes are so minor that it is not worth SEOs freaking out about them. The overall conclusion of this study stated:

We shouldn’t be changing how we approach things ultimately… Above the fold is the real estate that’s prime (what else is new?). It may be the measuring that we will have to adapt. You will need to find ways to check rankings from a few locales and discern a mean average instead of a definitive placement.

It is worth while reading the whole report at the Huomah Blog.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

In December, Google announced they will be personalizing all Google results by default. SEOs rightfully were a bit on edge after that announcement, but we did link to an old study on how personalized results impact rankings, overall.

The study has been revised and posted at the Huomah Blog. I won’t go through all the points, but the conclusion is that currently, the personalized changes are so minor that it is not worth SEOs freaking out about them. The overall conclusion of this study stated:

We shouldn’t be changing how we approach things ultimately… Above the fold is the real estate that’s prime (what else is new?). It may be the measuring that we will have to adapt. You will need to find ways to check rankings from a few locales and discern a mean average instead of a definitive placement.

It is worth while reading the whole report at the Huomah Blog.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

How to Increase the Conversion Rate of Your Website

On January 19, 2010, In SEO, by Search Engine Optimization, Google Optimization - RSS Feeds

The conversion rate is the most important web metric in a commercial website. Conversions lead to sales and sales leads to profits this is why a good conversion rate is essential for long term business success. Yet this important web metric is often the hardest to figure out. SEO companies often ignore it and leave it to the website owner to determine. This is not good because SEO should not only be about increasing traffic from rankings instead a good SEO should also pay attention to the conversion rate….

Automate Software Builds with Visual Build Pro Easily create an automated, repeatable process for building and deploying software.

Increase the Power of your SEO Efforts

On January 19, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

If you have been conducting search engine optimization efforts for your website for some time and you are wondering why things just are not working out like they should you might want to take a step back and take a look at some other factors that could be holding your website back from climbing in [...]

If you have been conducting search engine optimization efforts for your website for some time and you are wondering why things just are not working out like they should you might want to take a step back and take a look at some other factors that could be holding your website back from climbing in the rankings.

Here are a few important areas to consider when marketing your online business:

• Proper Steps? – Did you dive into link building or did you take the proper steps to optimize your website first? If you’re trying to build links without taking the time to focus on your website first you will never see the results you are looking for. Link building before on-site optimization is a lot like putting the buggy before the horse.

• Brand Power – Have your tired to increase the power of your brand? Strong branding elements often times will get a website visitor to reconsider things when they make it to your website. Try either re-branding or branding your business website even more to get people interested what you have to say. Branding is playing an even more important role in today’s market place than it ever has before. Website traffic wants to see your logo and company info in many different places so make sure that you are branding your business actively.

• Website Structure – This is very important, have you taken them time to make sure the layout of your site is completely ready for your business goals. If your goal is online sales on your online store than you should have many ways for that website visitor to make it to your online store. If you want leads your lead form should be visible on every page of your website. You want to make sure your URL’s to all your web pages are clean and optimized and all content is clearly visible on all your web pages.

• Age of Website – Did you just launch your website a few weeks or months ago? If you just recently launched your website you will have to diversify your marketing approach until you start ranking in search results. Rankings are given to websites who have been around for some time and you have to have your expectations in order when launching a recently new website.

Search engine optimization requires a unique and carved out plan that requires some patience and time to get right. It is more than just building relevant inbound links to your website. It is building a business and on any platform building a business brings its own challenges.

SEO and PPC Can’t Wait

On January 18, 2010, In SEO, by Search Engine Watch

Time is a crucial factor for making the most of your search engine optimization and paid search opportunities. Here’s how to make sure they don’t just become another organizational priority. …

Keyword Targeting: How to Employ Multiple Keywords for SEO & Conversions

On January 18, 2010, In SEO, by randfish

Posted by randfish

At some point during your University’s SEO 201: Advanced Keyword Research & Targeting class, they probably gave a few lectures and case studies on how to effectively split up your keyword research list across multiple pages and use those terms/phrases to maximum benefit. But, for those who might have missed that lesson (which would be, umm, all of us, since no formal education in SEO exists), a handy refresher might be in order.

Many SEOs struggle to answer questions like:

How many keywords can I target on a page?
Should I try to target all of my most important terms on my homepage (since it gets the most link juice)?
When I should try to target similar phrases together vs. splitting them up?

This post is meant to help with precisely those issues.

At the end of the keyword research phase you’ve established which terms and phrases are worthwhile. Now you’ll need to determine which keywords to target where, and how. This four-step process should make that easy (and apparently, checklists are awesome).

I’m using comic books both because they’re fun, and because a recently retired-from-Google friend opened his own comic shop in West Seattle, so I’ve got superheroes in tights on the brain. In the example above, I’ve sorted several high demand keywords into groupings that relate to their core subject – in this case, by superhero. You can do this with products, articles, blog post categories or any type of content.

Next, I need to segment the keywords in each group by the intent of a potential visitor. This is absolutely critical, because even if two keyword terms/phrases are very similar, putting them together can be disatrous if the goals of the searcher are different. It’s technically worse to rank 1st and convert visits at 0.1% than to rank 10th and get a conversion rate of 2%. By segmenting on intent, you can make sure to uniquely target searchers seeking a specific goal without cannibalizing or misdirecting traffic to the detriment of your site’s usability/conversion rate.

If possible, you’ll want to use the insight you gain from the keyword research and targeting process to help determine the site’s hierarchy and information architecture. Even if you’re deep down in the weeds on an already existing site, you can employ intelligent cross-linking to make sure visitors can find what they’re seeking from potential landing pages. The concept should be to make the primary content of the page the most likely target of the searcher’s intent, then provide navigation to secondary, tertiary or more specific needs.

You now have the keyword groups segmented to individual pages and a hierarchy for your site, so the final step is assigning the keyword targets to individual pages and providing recommendations on Titles, URLs, Meta Descriptions and page functionality. In the example above, I’ve employed multiple keywords in the page elements (plural and singular versions of "comic" as well as "dc comics" and "batman comics") to help attract that traffic. I’m also listing "detective comics" here, though technically, I might even have a separate subcategory for that individual series that’s linked-to on this page.

This planning process is key to getting the best results possible. Over time, your analytics data can help show you where assumptions have been incorrect and you can course correct. What’s important is understanding the basic rules for keyword targeting:

No page should target keywords just because it "can rank for them;" you need to also consider the visitor experience and whether the page’s content can serve as many "keyword masters" as you’re targeting.
Pages can target multiple keywords and phrases at once so long as the intent is the same. Don’t arbitrarily split up pages or make a new page for every permutation of a keyphrase simply so you can have "optimum" optimization. Remember it’s much easier to earn links to one page than to many (and much easier to build one good funnel than two).
Keyword targeted pages need to provide the content a visitor is seeking and the links to the detailed pages they might want. Search engines are pretty smart – if visitors aren’t getting value from your pages, they’re not going to link to them, not going to click them in the SERPs and not going to recommend them to others. Even if you manipulate your way to the top today, in the long run, the engines will identify methods to get relevant, quality content ranking.

I’d also suggest checking out previous posts on:

Hopefully this has been valuable and I’d certainly appreciate examples and suggestions from the community on how you employ keyword targeting for maximum benefit.

p.s. I may have overstated when I said there’s "no" formal education. Market Motive offers some great online classes and certification as does Search Engine College. And yes, SEOmoz has a video training series, too – the metaphor was meant tongue in cheek

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Posted by randfish

At some point during your University’s SEO 201: Advanced Keyword Research & Targeting class, they probably gave a few lectures and case studies on how to effectively split up your keyword research list across multiple pages and use those terms/phrases to maximum benefit. But, for those who might have missed that lesson (which would be, umm, all of us, since no formal education in SEO exists), a handy refresher might be in order.

Many SEOs struggle to answer questions like:

How many keywords can I target on a page?
Should I try to target all of my most important terms on my homepage (since it gets the most link juice)?
When I should try to target similar phrases together vs. splitting them up?

This post is meant to help with precisely those issues.

At the end of the keyword research phase you’ve established which terms and phrases are worthwhile. Now you’ll need to determine which keywords to target where, and how. This four-step process should make that easy (and apparently, checklists are awesome).

I’m using comic books both because they’re fun, and because a recently retired-from-Google friend opened his own comic shop in West Seattle, so I’ve got superheroes in tights on the brain. In the example above, I’ve sorted several high demand keywords into groupings that relate to their core subject – in this case, by superhero. You can do this with products, articles, blog post categories or any type of content.

Next, I need to segment the keywords in each group by the intent of a potential visitor. This is absolutely critical, because even if two keyword terms/phrases are very similar, putting them together can be disatrous if the goals of the searcher are different. It’s technically worse to rank 1st and convert visits at 0.1% than to rank 10th and get a conversion rate of 2%. By segmenting on intent, you can make sure to uniquely target searchers seeking a specific goal without cannibalizing or misdirecting traffic to the detriment of your site’s usability/conversion rate.

If possible, you’ll want to use the insight you gain from the keyword research and targeting process to help determine the site’s hierarchy and information architecture. Even if you’re deep down in the weeds on an already existing site, you can employ intelligent cross-linking to make sure visitors can find what they’re seeking from potential landing pages. The concept should be to make the primary content of the page the most likely target of the searcher’s intent, then provide navigation to secondary, tertiary or more specific needs.

You now have the keyword groups segmented to individual pages and a hierarchy for your site, so the final step is assigning the keyword targets to individual pages and providing recommendations on Titles, URLs, Meta Descriptions and page functionality. In the example above, I’ve employed multiple keywords in the page elements (plural and singular versions of "comic" as well as "dc comics" and "batman comics") to help attract that traffic. I’m also listing "detective comics" here, though technically, I might even have a separate subcategory for that individual series that’s linked-to on this page.

This planning process is key to getting the best results possible. Over time, your analytics data can help show you where assumptions have been incorrect and you can course correct. What’s important is understanding the basic rules for keyword targeting:

No page should target keywords just because it "can rank for them;" you need to also consider the visitor experience and whether the page’s content can serve as many "keyword masters" as you’re targeting.
Pages can target multiple keywords and phrases at once so long as the intent is the same. Don’t arbitrarily split up pages or make a new page for every permutation of a keyphrase simply so you can have "optimum" optimization. Remember it’s much easier to earn links to one page than to many (and much easier to build one good funnel than two).
Keyword targeted pages need to provide the content a visitor is seeking and the links to the detailed pages they might want. Search engines are pretty smart – if visitors aren’t getting value from your pages, they’re not going to link to them, not going to click them in the SERPs and not going to recommend them to others. Even if you manipulate your way to the top today, in the long run, the engines will identify methods to get relevant, quality content ranking.

I’d also suggest checking out previous posts on:

Hopefully this has been valuable and I’d certainly appreciate examples and suggestions from the community on how you employ keyword targeting for maximum benefit.

p.s. I may have overstated when I said there’s "no" formal education. Market Motive offers some great online classes and certification as does Search Engine College. And yes, SEOmoz has a video training series, too – the metaphor was meant tongue in cheek

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SEO’s are Not a Free Hotline

On January 17, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

It boggles my mind how some people will call a place a business of and actually get upset when free information is not provided where it usually is paid for. I would never in my wildest dreams call a doctor or lawyer and demand they get on the phone and start asking for free advice [...]

It boggles my mind how some people will call a place a business of and actually get upset when free information is not provided where it usually is paid for. I would never in my wildest dreams call a doctor or lawyer and demand they get on the phone and start asking for free advice only to get upset that it was not provided.

If you search online you will quickly find that there are ample amounts of free information regarding the search engine optimization industry. Everything from detailed how-to guides to lists of qualified sources that can walk you through virtually almost any problem you might have with your website. There are also numerous forums that are updated every single day with very new fresh information relating to the search industry. Most of the forums are littered with internet marketing experts smacking their chops waiting to get involved in good forum thread discussion. There is no reason why anybody should call a place of business and weasel their way to try to get free knowledge and information, information that clients pay top dollar for. I usually smell this within the first few seconds on the phone with a person. After conducting internet marketing for many years my knowledge is valuable. You shouldn’t get upset when I offer my consulting rates when specific SEO related how-to questions come up over the phone. This is not to say you can ask about process and method but detail how-to questions should not be coming up during an initial sales call. We are not a soup kitchen. We provide a marketing service that helps business grow their presence online using a variety of internet marketing related efforts that took years to learn and polish. Each business situation is different. By blurting out an answer to your question we are actually doing you a disservice because there is usually more to that answer than just a quick reply.

If you really have a problem hire an internet consultant for an hour or two. If the answer helps your business grow you shouldn’t have a problem paying the fees for a few hours of time from a person that has been doing SEO for over ten years. Not only will they have your undivided attention but most likely provide you with a solution and then some that could help turn your business around in a great way. Respect an SEO experts time and they will respect your problem or situation even more.

Peer Review: SEO Best Practices for Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content

Duplicate Content

Offline Reading List: Magazines and Books for SEOs

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SEO’s are Not a Free Hotline

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