So many of us have spent countless hours reading the advice of esteemed link building legends such as Eric Ward.  Time after time we are told what tactics we should avoid and are left frustrated that we don’t have a new link building method to go experiment with.  Sound familiar?

Here is the latest “advice” from Eric Ward over on Search Engine Land.  In the article Eric talks about the sheer quantity of businesses out there that shouldn’t be on the web.  He points out that these companies rely on search engines as their only source of online traffic.  He continues to speak to the link building tactics that you shouldn’t engage in (sound familiar?) leaving readers like Zac Sullivan (@XakSullivan) making comments like…

“I’d like to hear more specific, positive recommendations for things to-do rather than things not-to-do, though that is good to know as well.” Well Zac, I’m not Eric Ward.  I don’t hide link building tactics that the pros use.  In fact I’m here to show you exactly how to obtain links like Eric Ward.  I will be using the exact example that Eric spoke to in his Search Engine Land post.  The example is of course KBB.com (Kelley Blue Book) rankings #1 for “used car prices”.  Now Kelley Blue Book is the offline authority, first to mind company when anyone thinks of used car prices.  They are also linked to from thousands of auto dealerships and car websites naturally.  Ignore all that.  According to Eric Ward, and every SEO agrees, you need links from “subject-specific legitimate organizations with websites that exist not for SEO reasons”.  Take a look at the example given, the Cape Cod Classic Car Club.  Zac, Eric is telling you to build links like these!  Indeed this is one of the methods that he has relied on over his link building career.  Today I will show you how to link build like Eric Ward.

But first I’d like to point out that his example of an excellent link is on a site that sells links! See the screen shot below.  I guess you don’t have to check for paid links before building links on the domain.

Anyway…building links from “smaller, subject-specific legitimate organizations with websites that exist not for SEO reasons” can be simplified into 4 easy steps.

Step 1: Utilize advanced search parameters to find these subject specific websites.   A simple one that works well is “intitle:”keyword” inurl:”links”.  He is a screen grab using “classic car” as the keyword.

As you can see there are 3,310 websites you can target using just this one keyword!

Step 2: Use your favorite scraper to compile a list of all the URLS. I personally use Scrapebox for this.  No I don’t use this to comment spam

Step 3: Visit the sites and obtain the email address of the decision maker (Eric points out that webmaster@ emails rarely convert and I agree.)

I will use the first URL in the advanced search parameter above as my example. As you can see below, the webmaster provides not only his email, but also 2 phone numbers as well!  (Most sites that have “/links” pages were created awhile ago before online privacy concerns.)

Step 4a: Email the webmaster a link request.  This is by far the hardest step and it more complicated than most people make it.  While I believe this overall strategy is very elementary, this step is not.  People invest 100′s of hours testing link request emails and templates.  The key here is conversion obviously.  So what do you say in your link request?  The two most important things are to stand out and communicate your value add.  Most webmasters who broadcast their email addresses publicly get a lot of emails.  Why should they open yours? It starts with a title and intro that stands out.  Why should they add your company link on their page?  This is where the value add comes into play.  Now with Eric’s example of Kelley Blue Book, it is pretty darn easy to get a car site to link KBB.  It’s almost as easy as getting a home improvement site to link to Home Depot! Here are some old but great posts on how to write a link request: Stuntdubl, Good old Rand Fishkin (aka I am white hat!), ClickZ, SoloSEO, and Search Engine Journal.

Step 4b: This added step is for those who want to mimic Eric Ward to the extreme.  This step takes more time but the success rate can be higher.  You will not be using link request emails at all.  You will only be using Whois, the phone book, and your phone!  The first step is to try to find a phone number of the person who registered the domain.  This is not ideal but it’s the quickest.  I’ll use the same example from above.  Here is the Whois registrant:

Notice how the phone number and email match what I was able to find on their site.  Most of these older sites will not have their information protected because they aren’t experts at doing things online.  Now this isn’t the most extreme Eric Ward link building method.  So what is it, you ask?  First you will need to narrow the list you scraped earlier to only those sites that exist offline.  Like Eric has said, we are looking for “legitimate organizations with websites that exist not for SEO reasons”.  Only those organizations who exist offline (The Cape Cod Car Club), should be targeted.  Use your phone book or Yellow Pages to find the listing.  Here is the Yellow Book listing for the above example:

Again, the information matches. Simply call the number above and inquire about the website ,what the organization is about, and the links/resources page.  Are they looking for additional resources that add value for their members or users?  If so you have a great company to suggest…your client.

Why does this strategy work? I know what you are thinking…all the above posts are 3-10 years old.  You’ve heard about this as a link building tactic before.  What is the big deal?  The big deal is that this strategy if executed properly still has an amazing effect…so amazing in fact that Eric Ward decided to talk about it in his latest post over on Search Engine Land.  It works because of the following:

1. The domains are contextually relevant. (Duh?)

2. These domains and pages are usually old.

3. “smaller, subject-specific legitimate organizations with websites that exist not for SEO reasons” are seen as extremely credible.

Try using this strategy and changing up the advanced search parameters to find the most relevant sites possible.  For an added bonus, try link building to the /links pages on other people’s domains.  Now your stepping up into the league of “link laundering”.  More on that in my next post.

Link Build Like Eric Ward In 4 Easy Steps is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Welcome the first installment of the new SEO Lair series, SEO mysteries solved.  We about to begin on an epic journey, uncovering the webs most unsolved SEO mysteries.  Some will be easy and almost obvious, like today’s topic – Why is Google changing my title tags?  Others will be much more complex.  Let’s solve an SEO mystery, shall we?

The inspiration for today’s on changing title tags comes from various posts across the inter webs of SEOs freaking out because Google is changing some of their title tags.  I found the first post yesterday on SE Watch.  Here is a quote from the posts which sums up the purpose of all these “freak out” posts: “SEOs are getting frustrated.”  Who’s frustrated you may ask?  Well the respected community over at Webmaster World have something to say.  So does David Malmborg from SEO.com and Bill Hartzer on his search engine marketing blog.  The opinion and concerns of the community are two fold:

1. Why does Google have the right to change my title tags from what I decide?  A.K.A who is Google to determine relevancy?

2. What is the point of the title tag anymore if Google is just going to determine it automatically?  A.K.A why waste time optimizing it?  Should we simply focus our efforts on on-page elements and off-site work?

The answers to these questions aren’t of immediate concern because the mystery lies else where. How is Google determining a relevant title tag for my page? Many SEOs have theories which are all valid.  Could they be pulling this from on-page content?  What about heading tags or linking anchor text?  Maybe it’s pulling from DMOZ?  Let me pose a question.  Why ask HOW when you can ask WHY? If you can prevent Google from choosing the title tags for all of your pages, does it really matter how they are doing it?  It may have far reaching implications down the line, but for now – let’s focus on the SEO mystery: WHY is Google changing my title tags?

The answer to this mystery is simple.  Let’s turn to an esteemed Google resource (No it’s not Matt Cutts, lol) – Google Webmaster Central. I quote from this post: ““Make sure that each page on your site has a useful and descriptive page title (contained within the title tags). If a title tag is missing, or if the same title tag is used for many different pages, Google may use other text we find on the page. The HTML suggestions page in Webmaster Tools lists pages where Google has detected missing or problematic title tags. (To see this page, click Diagnostics in the left-hand menu of the site Dashboard. Then click HTML suggestions.)”

The answer to our SEO mystery is right there in bold.  Google will only change your title tags if they aren’t unique enough or if you aren’t using them.  But wait, there’s more from John Mueller via Google Webmaster Central: “In general, when we run across titles that appear to be sub-optimal, we may choose to rewrite them in the search results. This could happen when the titles are particularly short, shared across large parts of your site or appear to be mostly a collection of keywords. One thing you can do to help prevent this is to make sure that your titles and descriptions are relevant, unique and compelling, without being “stuffed” with too much boilerplate text across your site.”

There you have it – the final piece to the puzzle in bold.  In summary here is why Google is deciding what your title tags should be: They don’t exist, they are too short, they are duplicated across your site, and/or they are too full of keyword spam. Let’s examine how to check if you are at risk of being a victim of Google policing your own website.

First you need Google Webmaster Tools verified.  If you are an SEO beginner do this immediately, go go.  Now on to the real steps (Get ready, they are really HARD!)

1. Click on “Diagnostics”, then click on “HTML suggestions”.

2. Look for the following:

3. Look at the list of potential factors that put  you at risk.  Clicking on the problems will tell you EXACTLY which urls you need to clean up.

“Non-informative title tags” is Google’s way of saying “keyword spam”.

That’s all she wrote folks.  It’s really that easy.  If your site has no issues with its title tags you will see the following message:

Google should not be re-writing your title tags for any reason if you see this message. Congratulations!  You now control your own site.

How Google is re-writing title tags is a very interesting subject.  I’m very excited about reading research about different ideas.  It’s going to have longer term implications and will uncover more about how Google views web pages, thus making it easier for smart people to be better at SEO.  If you are doing any research around this, please post a comment and I will make sure to show you some link love in this post!

SEO Mystery Solved: Why is Google Changing my Title Tags? is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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As we’ve no doubt learned by now, guest blogging is one of the best ways to get more exposure and links for your website. Not is it almost 100% Google-friendly, but it allows you to tap into another blogger’s established network and perhaps take advantage of their high PR website. The person who hosts your guest blog post hopefully gets your high-quality and original content to offer to their readers and keep them interested in returning to their site.

Deciding that you WANT to guest post and finding a place to guest post are two very different things, however, and having some great content for distribution is only half the battle. You can write a fantastic article and be stuck with absolutely no place to put it. You may firmly believe that your content is deserving of a home on a highly trafficked blog with great PR and loyal readers, and perhaps there’s even such a blog out there, just waiting for content like yours, but if you can’t find it, then your fantastic guest post will be doomed to obscurity. How can this problem be addressed? How can we find great places to post our content? We can’t always count on friends or colleagues to have blogs for us to post our content to (big shout out to SeoLair!).

One of the first things I would suggest trying is a website called Topsy. Topsy describes itself as a search engine for Twitter. If you do a search on Topsy for any topic, you can find websites that have been popular on Twitter in a certain period of time for that topic. These websites have a great social reach and would be ideal places to ask for a guest blog post. Your request doesn’t have to be a difficult thing. Send the author of the blog a direct message, introduce yourself, explain what you have to offer and why you think a guest blog post would be mutually advantageous.

Topsy isn’t the only place you can search for potential blog posting partners. Another good location you can use is Google Alerts. Google Alerts allows you to scour the web for certain topics or keywords. When these words or topics get mentioned, Google will compile a list of the websites that mentioned the very thing you were hoping to guest post about. These are all great locations for potential guest blog posts. Sometimes you don’t even have to send a ‘cold-call’ type of email. Many bloggers already have systems for guest-blogging already set up and in place. Some even are willing to pay for reliable writers of quality content.

You can also always look around on forums and portals pertaining to your topic of interest. Chances are, if you have a passion for something, someone has made a forum centered around your topic. Try searching for your topic in Google plus the words “forum”, “blog”, or “message board”. Chances are, you’ll find lots of like-minded individuals who might be willing to exchange guest blog posts so you can tap into each others’ social networks and readers.

Without a doubt, however, the absolute best way to find a place to host guest content is at My Blog Guest. My Blog Guest is a relatively new community (just 8 months old) of bloggers who meet on a forum to exchange guest blog posts. The community has been kept relatively small because of the high quality demanded by blog authors on the website; if you are hoping to get your spammy or poorly written guest content featured by bloggers on the forum, you’d better think again. This is just the perfect resource for identifying bloggers in similar niches that you can be totally sure are actively seeking the content you’ve written. And hey, if you are a blogger and you are having trouble updating your blog as often as you want, why not head on over to My Blog Guest and see if you can score a quality guest blogger eager for their content to reach your audience?

My Blog Guest is a totally free service, although it does have a premium membership that allows certain extra additional features, but currently, these features are more like conveniences than actual necessities. In addition to the open forums where bloggers and content writers meet to exchange articles, there’s a jobs board where various paid writing opportunities can be posted and an open articles forum where anyone can submit conent for consideration (although only premium members can claim content from there). It’s still managed by just a handful of moderators and the community has stayed so small that the standards have stayed high and the riff-raff have been kept out. I hope that if you read this and decide to join our guest-blogging community, you will espouse similar high standards for your own conduct.

David Fishman is a blogger and internet marketing enthusiast from Atlanta, GA. In his spare time, he likes to blog about his interests, which recently involve cooking and food preparation and specifically, how to make sushi.

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3 Great Ways to Find Guest Blog Partners is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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I’ve been reading a lot of fellow SEO blogs lately.  What I’ve noticed is that while link building is still a hot topic, most of the posts discuss link building tactics.  Most SEOs know where to start when link building but aren’t sure how to set their expectations.  Hopefully with the help of this link building expectations formula, you will be able to properly set link building expectations for your clients, for your employees, and for yourself.  Let’s get started!Setting expectations when doing most SEO activities is key to success.  This especially rings true when you are working for a client who demands to know how long it will be before xyz is accomplished.  Based on the type of link building tactics this time table will change.  This is where the link building expectations formula comes into play:

Time * Cost * Quality = Link Building Expectations

Included in the link building expectations formula are three variables.  When choosing the type of link building tactic to engage in, remember you can ONLY CHOOSE TWO variables.  For example if you want the link building to be done quickly and be high quality, it is going expensive.  Here are some conclusions that come out of the formula:

1. If the link building is inexpensive and high quality, it is going to take a lot of TIME.

2. If the link building is quick and cheap, it’s going to be LOW QUALITY.

3. If the link building is quick and high quality, it’s going to be EXPENSIVE.

Paid links are a different animal.  Only some forms of paid link building fit this model.  For the purposes of this guide, we’re only focusing on organic link building.  I’m working on an extensive high quality paid link building guide.  How to set expectations for paid links will be covered in that guide, so check back later!

Below are some examples of link building tactics that fit the link building expectations formula above.  Use these examples to help set your expectations when engaging in various link building tactics.  If you don’t see a link building tactic you use on a regular basis, post a comment so we can set some expectations for it!

High Quality and Inexpensive, yet Time Consuming: Link bait pieces, Guest blog posts, High PR micro/feeder sites.

Quick and Cheap, yet Low Quality: Article link building, directories, forum and blog commenting, free press release distribution, video link building, link exchanges.

Quick and High Quality, yet Expensive: Premium press release distribution, some paid links, sponsored reviews.

Just as a reminder, you can only have TWO of the three variables in the formula:

Time * Cost * Quality = Link Building Expectations.

There are a few, I mean very few, link building tactics that are cheap, high quality, and quick. I can think of only one off the top of my head. The people who know what those are won’t tell you so you’ll just have to go experiment!

Link Building Expectations Formula is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Google OneBox – Integrated Search Optimization is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Reduce Web Page Load Times

After the announcement of Google’s newest ranking factor, web page load time, webmasters are looking for ways to speed up their site.  While developers and web designers usually know where to look to improve their page speed, this can be a daunting task for SEOs with a minimal technical background.  Below is a list of factors that can affect your web page load time, what they mean, and how to fix them.  See them below the fold.

Web Page Load Time Factors

Factor #1:  Large HTML Files

Description:  The average size of raw HTML code is around 20KB.  HTML files larger than this can increase load times.

Possible Way to Fix:  Remove any unneccessary code.  Move inline coding to an external file when possible. Compress HTML pages to reduce their size.

Factor #2: Inline coding (CSS and JavaScript)

Description:  Having JavaScript and CSS styling definitions directly in the raw HTML file can unneccessarily increase the size of the raw HTML file.  Also, it forces the code to be loaded every time it is used.

Possible Way to Fix:  Move the CSS and JavaScript to external files (.css and .js, respectivley).  This will reduce the size of the raw HTML, and allow the code to be loaded once even if it is used in multiple locations in one page.

Factor #3: In HTML styling tags

Description:  Before CSS was created, formatting tags like <font> and parameters like align=”center” were used to change the appearance of a website.  These methods are less efficient than using a CSS, and can slow down load times.

Possible Way to Fix: Remove such formatting tags and create the same formatting in the CSS file.

Factor #4: Too many DNS requests

Description:  Every time a different domain needs to be accessed to load something, a DNS request is necessary.  DNS requests allow a web page to connect to an external domain, but that initial request takes extra time to process.  Once  the connection has been made, loading additional items from that domain do not require additional DNS requests.

Possible Way to Fix:  Host as much content as possible on as few domains as possible.  The fewer domains that have to be connected to, the faster the page will load.

Factor #5: Too many external files

Description: To avoid inline coding, external files are used.  These files must be “included” through code in the raw HTML file.  Having too many of these files included can increase load times.

Possible Way to Fix:  Combine external files to reduce the total number of external files to be included.

Factor #6: Oversized external files

Description:  To avoid inline coding, external files are used.  If these files exceed 50KB or so, they can slow down the loading speeds.

Possible Way to Fix:  Remove any unneccessary code.  Compress the raw code to reduce file size.  If necessary, split the files into multiple files, but only if absolutely necessary.

Factor #7: Oversized images

Description:  Images over 50KB are so are generally slow to load.

Possible Way to Fix:  Use smaller images or compress the images.

Factor #8: Too much JavaScript

Description:  Only one line of JavaScript can be run at a time, and other files cannot be loaded while JavaScript is processing.  Using too much JavaScript will force the rest of the page to wait for the JavaScript to finish before it can load.

Possible Way to Fix:  Remove any unneccessary JavaScript.

Factor #9: Overloaded server

Description:  If the server is receiving more requests than it can handle, it will slow down significantly, and sometimes even deny requests.

Possible Way to Fix:  Remove any unneccessary code.  Use server-side caching.  Server-side caching will respond to requests with temporary static HTML pages so that the pages themselves have to make extra requests less often.  Enable browser-side caching.  Browser-side caching through “expires” tags will tell browsers to store a copy of the page locally until the provided expiration date, reducing requests from those who frequently visit the site.  The last option is to increase the number of requests a server can handle by upgrading the server hardware with faster hardware.

Factor #10: Slow server connection

Description:  If the server’s connection to the internet is slow, then it will receive all requests slower and send all pages slower.

Possible Way to Fix:  Increase the server’s internet connection bandwidth.

Hopefully this list of factors that influence the load speed of web pages will make it easier for those SEOs with a less technical background to make an impact on their load times.  While sites will only get penalized for being slow, there is no telling whether or not fast sites will be rewarded in the future.  My gut tells me they will be.

Ways To Reduce Your Web Page Load Time is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Google Vs. Bing

With the seemingly global approval of the Bing/Yahoo search deal comes the start of a long lasting battle.  The search engine wars between Google and Bing have truly begun.  Now of course the search engine war has been going on since the idea of anyone making money online, but this recent deal has escalated things to a new level.  Once the implementation of the Bing/Yahoo search deal occurs sometime in Q4 (ppc interface integration is scheduled to take place in middle October), the search engine wars will really heat up.  Google has a majority of the market by far with Bing sitting somewhere between 7-10% depending on whose numbers you look at.  In Q4 of this year Bing will most likely represent about 26-28% market share, significantly more than they currently have.  At the same time, Google is not only trying to hold steady but grow their market lead.  Some people are under the impression that Google is willing to bleed market share to Bing or that Google isn’t afraid of Bing.  To those I tell you – Google’s stock price is currently trading at $566/share.  Google is paying very close attention to every move that Bing is making and counter-acting accordingly.  The purpose of the Google Vs. Bing Search Engine Wars series is to document various strategic moves each search engine is making in order to capture your searches. One thing everyone undoubtedly loves about Bing is the amazingly beautiful imagery on the home page.  Google is obviously paying attention to what people like about Bing and will attempt to re-create such features.  Today I noticed the following section on the Google homepage:

Google Bing Wars

As you can see, “New! travel the world from your Google homepage” now appears.  Hrm… I wonder where Google got that idea.  Looking deeper into the new addition to iGoogle, you will notice the beautiful imagery that you can now add as a theme to your iGoogle.  Now I now some of you are wondering, what’s new?  I’ve always been able to add different themes to my iGoogle.  The key here is the promotion of this feature on the home page and that it is entirely focused on travel and destinations, a strategy that has been working wonders for Bing.

Google Bing Wars Travel Destinations

This is just a teaser of strategic moves that Google and Bing will use against each other in the modern search engine wars.  There are many more interesting moves that will be investigated.  One that comes to mind instantly is the fact that Bing paid search click through rates are double, yes 2X, the other search engines including Google.  Right now it is not imperative for Google to react.  They get so much volume in comparison to Bing that paid search media will continue to look to Google as the leader.   Will Google change the layout of their page to increase the CTR of their paid search ads in the future as Bing’s traffic grows?  You’ll only know by checking back for upcoming parts of the ongoing series: Google Vs. Bing Search Engine Wars.

Google Vs. Bing: Search Engine Wars – Part 1 is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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404 Error News

I’ve been reading a lot of buzz lately on various SEO blogs about 404 errors.  In case you haven’t heard, many SEO news sources are pointing to a recent webmaster help thread where Googler “JohnMu” states that having a large number of 404 errors on your site “doesn’t hurt you”.  I thought it was imperative to clarify some misinterpretations of this news, especially by beginners.  What I’m afraid of is people reading this news and simply not paying attention to 404 errors on their site.  By themselves 404 errors “don’t hurt you”, this is absolutely true.  It is important, however, to understand how 404 errors effect your site and how you can monitor them to actually improve SEO performance.  Yes, you heard correct…improve your SEO.

404 error pages are an excellent way to improve the usability of your site.  When visitors click through external links to pages on your site that don’t exist or come as direct traffic to pages they think exist, they receive a 404 error.  The most important consideration for usability is using a 404 error page to control bounce rates.  The last thing you want to happen in your conversion funnel is for the user to bounce off to another site.  Messaging on the 404 error page is key.  You want to make sure to include relevant information about your site.  It also helps to provide a solution to the not found error.  This can be done by creating links to popular sections on your site etc…

Now that we’ve got the usability issue out of the way, let’s talk search engine crawlers and SEO impact.  You do want to improve your SEO performance, right?

We know via “JohnMu” at Google that large numbers of 404 error pages will not hurt your rankings.  Let’s not focus on the negative.  How can you use 404 errors to actually improve your SEO?  The key is capitalizing on external links pointing to 404 pages on your site.  Now why would an external site link to a page that doesn’t exist?  This usually happens when you change URLs without properly setting up 301 redirects.  This is very common on E-commerce sites that change product URLs.  It also happens on blogs.  The other day I was creating a post and decided after I published it to change the URL to help rank for some additional long tail keywords I had forgotten about.  I tweeted out my post and submitted it to digg, propeller, mybloglog, etc…  Those services and people who found my article on those services where seeing the old URL.  If a proper redirect wasn’t in place, there could have been tons of great external links pointing to a URL that had been changed.  OK, OK…that didn’t happen to me, but it does occur more frequently than you would think.

In order to capitalize on these 404 error pages and the links pointing to them (don’t forget internal links too), we need to find which pages are returning a 404 error messages that have link some link juice.  Luckily for you, you don’t have to download a special program or click an affiliate link of mine. Google Webmaster Tools can give you all the insights you need to take advantage of this wasted SEO value.  If you don’t have a Google Webmaster Tools account you show create one.  It is very simple and provide tons of additional benefits which I won’t bore people with in this post.

404 error link examples

Notice above that Google Webmaster Tools will tell you which pages are returning a 404 error as well as the number of links pointing to that URL.  The number of links shown on the right represents all of the wasted link juice you are about to capitalize on.  This screenshot is of a client who recently relaunched a new version of their site only a few days ago.  I’m sure if your smart you can figure out the site.  If you do, please keep it to yourself. As you can see some pages only have a few links pointing to them but the last link has 100 links whose value is being wasted!

In order to take advantage of these links, all you have to do is set up a permanent 301 redirect on these pages to relevant pages on your site.  It order to get the most bang for your buck, redirect pages to a relevant deep page.  If none exists, simply redirect the page to your canonical home page.

Now go forth and capitalize on some links you didn’t even know you had!

If you have any questions about the above post, please leave a comment below, send me an @seolair on twitter, or email me at webmaster at seolair dot com.

Recent 404 Error News: Know The Truth & Profit is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Tomorrow is a special day on which people from around the world celebrate St. Patricks by wearing green and drinking heavily . There is; however, another reason to celebrate – My Birthday.  In the last week I’ve started a mission to rank for my name, George Fischer.  The problem, I quickly discovered, is that my name also happens to be the name of an international piping company who also happens to have the domain.  This company also has tons of viral content that ranks in additional to circa 18,000 links to the home page and about 5,000 deep links.  As you can see I have a tall order in front of me.

That is where my birthday and YOU come in.  If, in the celebration of my birthday, you would like to help please keep reading.

I’ve already set up a landing page for my name at /george-fischer/.  What I need is some link building help.  I’m not asking for a site wide link or even a link on your homepage.  What would be extremely helpful is a followed link with my name as anchor text on an indexed page.  Once people start linking and I start to see some movement in the SERPS, I’m going to make a post with the results.  I will of course be including links to those bloggers who helped out

Please see below for information on how to link to me.

Anchor Text: George Fischer

Lander: http://www.seolair.com/george-fischer/

Code: <a href=”http://www.seolair.com/george-fischer/“>George Fischer</a>

Thanks!!!

My Birthday Link Building Wish is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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3. Link Building Mistakes Can Ruin Your Strategy

Bing SEO Guide

On February 19th, 2010 the regulatory system, AKA the government, approved the pending Bing/Yahoo merger.  This news affects tons of people across multiple industries including search engine marketing.  The SEO impact of this decision is monumental.  Now I know some of you are chomping at the bit to come with the usual response to such a statement: Google is still the dominant player in the industry, why focus on Bing?  While this mantra is technically still true to some extent, part of this Bing SEO Guide is designed to showcase the importance of Bing in the post merger search landscape.  More importantly, this guide will outline 10 ranking factors you must pay attention to in order to optimize for Bing successfully.

So why Bing?  Google will continue to have circa 70% market share in the search industry.  The obvious answer is that Bing will represent ~28% market share post merger.  This alone should make Bing a serious talking point in SEO conversations, not to mention PPC considering Bing has much higher click trough rates on their ads than Google.  But enough about what we already know.

The real reason not to ignore Bing post merger is because your competitors will not be ignoring Bing. This may seem obvious but let’s imagine you work for an SEO agency.  Your clients like the current relationship, however, they are open to hearing new business pitches from your competitors.  If your competitor goes into a pitch talking about Bing, the following scenario WILL happen: “What? I can’t believe your current agency isn’t talking to you about Bing”…Blah, blah, blah.  The above scenario is not a discussion you want to occur.  If the market share of Bing combined with the prospect of your clients going elsewhere isn’t enough to make you take Bing seriously, you may need to evaluate your stance on the search industry in general.

Ok, so now that we are all convinced Bing will demand more attention from SEOs, how do we optimize for it?  Do we focus on Google and hope our efforts trickle down to Bing?  Absolutely not.  I guarantee you that most SEOs utilize the above strategy for Bing.  This works for now but in a post merger landscape, top notch SEOs will need to put some emphasis on Bing specifically.

10 Bing Ranking Factors

Domain Age – This is one I hate to put here because you can’t influence it, outside of buying an older domain.  None the less, it is extremely important when optimizing for Bing.

Keyword in the Domain – Again, nothing you can easily change, but still influential.

Good Content – Specifically you want to shoot for having ~300+ words on the page.  In addition the fresher or more frequently updated the content is, the better.  Finally, the content should be keyword optimized but not over done.  Google might let you get away with some good old keyword density spamming, but Bing will not.

Inbound Links – This makes the list for obvious reasons.  The real point here is that while inbound links are important in order to optimize for Bing, less emphasis is put on them when compared to Google.  Google is a links based algorithm, while Bing focuses more on other factors (hint: they are in this list).

Bing Webmaster Tools – Similar to Google, Bing has their own webmaster tools.  Creating and verifying a Bing Webmaster Tools account and submitting your XML sitemap directly to Bing can improve rankings.  It also gives you insight into how to improve your site and make it more Bing friendly.

On-Site SEO/Internal Linking Structures – Bing tends to like pages that have all the proper on page SEO elements. This includes things like meta tags, heading tags, etc… Google pays less attention to things like the H1 tag, while Bing still sees these factors as being important.  You will see tons of sites ranking in Google with awful on-site SEO.  This won’t happen with Bing as it tends to favor “holistic SEO” as opposed to external links only.  Having a solid internal linking structure complete with site maps and breadcrumbs can get you a long way in Bing.

Clean URL Structures – Clean URLs are a big time influencer in Bing.  Google will tend to rank sites with parameter strings, internal tracking codes, etc… in the URL as long as it has links pointing to it.  Bing prefers and rewards clean URL structures even more than Google does.  Messy, code rich URLs will have a hard time ranking in Bing.

Outbound Links – Yes you heard correct.  The days of hoarding page rank are over.  Bing tends to reward outbound linking to authoritative and relevant sites.  It’s still up for debate whether or not Google rewards such behavior, but rest assured if you engage in this tactic it will only strengthen your Bing ranking.

Clean Code - Bing favors clean code.  Make sure your code can be verified.  In addition it helps to make your code as concise as possible.  This means compressing HTML via an accepted technique, using an external CSS sheet, etc…Not only will having clean code help your Bing rankings, but it will inherently reduce your page speed load time and help you in Google Caffeine as well!

Inbound Links with Keyword in Title Tag – This is possibly the most important factor on this list.  While inbound links from relevant sites are good, an inbound link with the keyword in the title tag specifically will work wonders in Bing.  Many SEOs have already done the testing on this phenomenon, I’m simply reiterating the idea.  A simple way to find these potential sites is to utilize advanced search parameters.  Search “intitle:”Keyword” and you will see all the sites with that keyword in their title tag.  BAM – there is a good list of sites to target in your Bing link building plan.  Combine the intitle search parameter will others for even better results.  Here is a good article explaining the various advanced search parameters written by Peter Wailes via YouMoz.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my 10 ranking factors you must know when optimizing for Bing.  If you’d like to add more to the list or share your thoughts, please feel free to post a comment or contact me via email or Twitter!

Bing SEO Guide: 10 Ranking Factors You MUST Know is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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all in one seo pack

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately around the all in one seo pack and how I use it here at SEO Lair.  The all in one seo pack is a great all around plugin for WordPress that enables you to manage core on-site optimization areas on your site.  In this tutorial you will find out exactly which fields provide the most seo beneift as well as the optimal settings for each.  First and foremost, the all in one seo pack for WordPress can be found here.  After the all in one seo pack is installed, the first field that appears in the enable/disable field.  I think this one  is a no brainer.  Next are your title, keyword, and description tags for the home page of your site.  The title and description tags are going to be the focus here. Make sure to include keywords you want to optimize your site for in both your title and description tags.  Google doesn’t use the keyword tag in their algorithm, however other engines such as Yahoo and most of the smaller indexes still do.  Fill this in with some basic keywords, but don’t spend more than 5-10 seconds, as there are other areas of the plugin that will provide a greater seo benefit.

how to use all in one seo pack top

The next field in the all in one seo pack is the canonical URL field.  This is arguably the most important field in the all in one seo pack outside of maybe the title tag on your home page.  You WANT to check this.  For those who are unfamiliar with the “canonical URL”- it makes sure there is one location of a web page by redirecting non www urls to those that include the www.  This one location, usually with the www, is known as the “canonical URL”.  This is important to your SEO for two reasons.  First when people link to your site, regardless of which version of the URL they link to, link juice will always be passed to the proper page.  Secondly having one canonical URL will cut down on some minor duplicate content issues, especially in some of the not so modern indexes.

The rest of the fields in the above picture all have to do with templated tags which auto-populate for different pages.  To make sure these tags are actually being populated, make sure the “rewrite titles” field is checked.  The most important of these fields is the post title field.  Wordpress is set up in such a way that usually the post pages are the strongest.  Notice how I have the post title as the first part of the title tag, but then I add in the category as well.  This adds additional SEO benefit especially if your categories have keywords in them.  For the rest of the fields in the above picture, its safe to leave them as the default.  You can of course change them based on your preferences.  I see some people make custom 404 error pages, but if you set your site up correctly, users should never be hitting a 404 page unless they manually type in yoursite.com/blah, for example.  One thing I do in these fields is add my brand name to the end..  This is a personal preference because I want my brand to be visible.  This is absolutely not necessary for SEO.  If you are having a hard time ranking for your brand term, or your brand term is a common term such as “SEO guru” you should include your brand at the end of every field.  This will strengthen the association of that term with YOUR site as opposed to someone elses.

how to use all in one seo pack 2

Above are the rest of the options in the all in one seo pack.  The first three fields have to do with auto-generating the keywords tag.  As mentioned above, the keyword tag isn’t nearly as effective as it once was, making this a part of your site you definitely want to automate.  The all in one seo pack give you the option to include categories as your keywords, tags for your keywords, or both.  As you can see above, I use the tags to auto-populate my keyword tags.  There is no harm in using your categories as well, especially if you have a lot of them. The field to use your tags is important and should always be checked.  The third field is your on/off switch for auto-generating keyword meta tags on your post pages.  This should also be checked.

The next three fields give you the option to no index certain types of pages on your site.  For example if you don’t want search engine and other crawlers seeing your archives, check the”use no index for archive pages” field.  Some SEO’s I’ve seen choose to no index their tags or archive pages.  In my mind the URLs on your site on your assets.  Having more pages indexed on your site gives two benefits: it increases the power of internal links and it enables you to rank for a broader range of terms.  There are reason for no indexing certain pages on your site, but those are advanced seo tactics outside the scope of this post.

The remaining fields in the all in one seo pack include auto-generating descriptions and capitalizing categories.  I choose to write my own descriptions, however you can choose to auto-populate them if you wish.  If you choose to auto-populate them, it will pull in content from your page and place it in the description tag.  It is best to write your own desciptions for each page that include the keyword(s) you are trying to rank the page for.  Also keep in mind that you can include call to action in your description tags which can increase the chances of your listing getting clicked on in the SERPS.  Capitalizing category titles is simply a styling issue.  I choose to do so as I think it looks more professional.  There is no seo impact here either way. The remaining four fields in the all in one seo pack I do not use.

I hope you enjoyed my post on how to use all in one seo pack for WordPress.  If you have any additional questions please ask them in one of the following three ways: post a comment below, send me a direct message on twitter, or  email me at webmaster at SEOLair dot com!

How To Use All In One SEO Pack is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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I recently had the pleasure of listening to a webinar hosted by Vertical Measures which featured SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin. The topic was link building for 2010 which featured some interesting tactics around viral link building campaigns, partnership link building, among others.  During the presentation Rand made a “mistake” and flashed a picture of an upcoming tool which SEOmoz is currently developing.  Interestingly enough, he did this during a viral link building presentation.  Obviously Rand’s intention was for the screen grab to go viral.  He get’s his wish beyond the fold, including some insight on what the tool does and how it can potentially be useful.

At first glance, the new SEOmoz tool looks very much like a competitive link research tool.  As you can see in the image below, the tool allows you to enter a URL or multiple URLs.  It has all the basic functionality of your usual competitive link tool such as page authority, domain authority, links to the home page, deep links, total links, etc…An example of a previously released and very useful competitive research tool is SEO Spy Glass.

New SEOmoz Tool

In addition to normal features you would expect to see this new SEOmoz tool provides “anchor text distribution” data.  This is most likely implementing features in SEOmoz’s already existing backlink analysis tool.  There is also a “full list of link metrics” feature but because the sneak peak is not interactive, we are unable to see what these are.  This new SEOmoz tool does implement a feature that is very rare to see in competitive link research available to the public…i.e not a proprietary tool.  It allows you see whether the links are followed, no-followed, or the result of a 301 redirect.  Some tools tell you whether or not a link is followed but very rare will check each link to see if it is the result of a 301 redirect.  This type of data could potentially be very useful in crafting a custom built link building strategy.  A final feature of this new SEOmoz tool that I’m really looking forward to is the ability to export to Excel.  This enables custom filtering of the data which is extremely important.

SEO for Beginners Tip: This tool and other like it can also be used to ideas of places to build links for your current clients.  In order to do this simply search for the keyword you want to rank for and record who is ranking in positions 1,2, and 3.  Enter those URLs into the competitive research tool you are using.  Comb the list for the best links that fit your link building strategy.

Wish this tool came with even more features?  Have some insight into what those “full list of link metrics” might be?

Please post a comment!

New SEOmoz Tool In The Works is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Real Time Search Results From Google

A few weeks ago Google announced they were rolling out their much anticipated real time search function. While some in the community are excited to see how they can implement real time search results into their SEO program, others aren’t so optimistic.

How Does Google Real Time Search Work? Google real time search delivers results by crawling various “Social” sites such as Twitter, Yahoo Answers, Facebook, news articles, Digg, MySpace, etc…Along with a link to the content, Google shows how long ago the particular comment was posted. There are also options to pause the list to keep if from refreshing. Additionally, Google will only display this new feature if it has a “real time component”.

The algorithm for this new real time search feature is relatively unknown. I would imagine that their is individual algorithm for each source i.e a twitter algorithm, a digg algorithm etc. There should also be a separate algorithm that chooses the most reliable source for the keyword. Example:  A keyword like “Technology News” might give more weight to Digg as opposed to another source. More news on this as the SEO community obtains more insight.

The benefits of a real time search component are obvious. Some examples are ski conditions, breaking news, surf information, tide conditions for fishing, etc…The possibilities are vast. Amongst all these benefits, however, are some potentially problematic issues. The most obvious one is spam. Twitter, Digg, and other social sites have been battling spam since their inception. The question becomes not how to stop the spam, but rather who should stop it. Do Twitter and Digg have to tighten the reins or is it Google’s responsibility to filter out spam through their algorithms? My personal opinion is that the responsibility lies with Google, however, I’m sure Google will be pressuring the most influential social sites to clean up their spam if they want to be included in real time search results.

Aside from the spam is the following concern:

Twitter Down...Again

Twitter is constantly going down due to “over capacity” issues.  While Google could be given priority over users in Twitter’s API, this is not a guarantee.  My personal opinion is that Google will not be granted priority as this will decrease much needed leverage to drive up the sell value of Twitter.  This would potentially force Google to increase their bid to acquire Twitter.

The final negative to real time search from Google is the monopoly they are creating.  Let’s face it- Google is the beast in the search community.  If an independent site invests the time and resources to come up with a good idea to improve search, it is likely that same feature appears on Google in the near future.  That being said, independent real time search sites such as OneRiot and Topsy, will take a huge traffic hit.  Granted, some users will prefer the clean cut interface those sites offer, but Google is set up to potentially knock these sites off the radar.  While business is business, this reality reduces the number of 3rd party developers who will invest their time and resources.  Those 3rd party developers are an important part of the internet community as a whole, and should be protected as such.

All in all, real time search from Google will make numerous improvements to search functionality.  It will also change the ways in which users interact and search through social media.  While the majority of this post hinges on the negatives of this new feature, their are major benefits which cannot be overlooked.  Spam filled or not, I will be checking ski conditions over the Christmas holiday using Google’s new real time search feature!

Have a different opinion?  Think I’m crazy? Challenging the opinions of fellow SEO’s in the community is one of our greatest strengths.  Please post in the comments or send an email to webmaster at SEO Lair dot com.

Google Real Time Search Revealed is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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2. Google Vs. Bing: Search Engine Wars – Part 1
3. Ways To Reduce Your Web Page Load Time

Google Caffeine

Many SEO sites have been reporting that web page load times could potentially effect rankings in the future, including SEO Lair.  This news come out of various interviews with Matt Cutts from Pubcon Las Vegas.  While most SEO news hubs are going conservative and saying web page load times “might” or “potentially could” effect rankings, I’m just going to come out and say it will be included in the Google Algorithm some time in the future.  I’m saying this for multiple reasons.  The main rational is that Google and all the other search engines try to deliver two key things:  relevant results and a good user experience.  That being said, the user experience is devalued if Google sends users to web page that load slower than the user wants.  Google has also paved the way for implementing this in their US Patent Application #20050071741.  Check out my post about SEO news from pubcon for more details on this.

So we know that webpage load times will be important but how can you tweak your site for better performance?  There are a few excellent resources out there to answer this question:

• The first is the web performance best practices document from Google.  This guide provides information how to optimize your cache, miminize round trip times, mimimize request times, minimize payload times, optimizing browser rendering, and more.
• The second place to look for information on reducing webpage load times are a set of two tools from Google.  The Page Speed Tool will conduct a series of tests on your site based on best practices.  In addition the tool will assign scores for each page and give helpful suggestions on how to improve its performance.
• The next tool is called Closure.  This nifty tool with take Java script code and compress it.  This tool not only removes dead code and optimizes the remaining code, but it checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript downfalls.
• The final resource I suggest using is the SEO Site Checkup tool.  The SEO Site Checkup tool reviews most elementary on-page issues but also, more importantly, checks site performance metrics.  These include the use of inline styles and Java script, nested tables, page caching, page compression, CSS images, Java script sizes, and more.

Using the tools referenced above you can increase your webpage load time.  It is important to start thinking about ways to make your site faster today.  You don’t want to be caught off guard when Google announces it as an influential factor and all your competitors already have fast loading sites.  This is an even bigger concern for E-commerce sites.

Have an opinion about this post?  Think webpage load times won’t effect rankings in the future?  Post a comment and share your thoughts!

If you are in need of some real life caffeine, check out Javita Gourmet Instant Coffee.  It is the latest herbal infused instant coffee on the market!

Google Caffeine: Speed Now For Rankings Tomorrow is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Pubcon Las Vegas SEO

A Pubcon conference was held recently in Las Vegas and included a site review session featuring key players from Google, Microsoft, and Bing including Matt Cutts,  Derrick Wheeler, and Nathan Buggia.  While multiple sites were reviewed with the usual intermediate/advanced recommendations being pointed out, there were a few note worthy issues that came up which I’d like to highlight.

Keyword stuffed footer links are potentially harmful: The Chief of Webspam at Google pointed out that multiple uses of keywords in anchor text, particularly in the footer, can be construed as being potentially manipulative.  I always run across sites with a ton of sidebar or footer links which contain potentially spammy.  I would link to one but I don’t want to reward them with link juice .  Most of the time these sites have an extremely large footer with upwards of 10,20,30+ links.  Yahoo has also come out and previously stated that removing potentially “spammy” footer links will have a positive impact on rankings.  Additionally, some sites which are “sandboxed” or penalized because of  manipulative footer links.

Website load times can effect organic rankings: Matt made it a point to communicate that website load times can have a positive impact on rankings.  He also pointed out that sites will not be penalized for having slower load times.  The idea of website load times effecting organic rankings mirrors the engines’ desires to deliver the most relevant results as well as a good user experience.  Website load times not only effect SEO results, but can have a lasting impact on other metrics such as bounce rate.  A recent study was conducted by Akamai that outlines user opinions and behavior regarding webpage load times.  The results were very surprising.  A user in 2009 expects a site to load twice as fast it did in 2006.  Additionally, almost 50% of users surveyed expect a site to load in less than 2 secs.  Now here’s where the bounce rate factor comes into play.  40% of will bounce from a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.  Over 50% of shoppers surveyed claim fast page load times are important to their loyalty to the site.

In conclusion, avoid repetitive use of keyword anchor text in your footer and make sure your site loads in a timely manner.  It doesn’t matter if your ranking #1 for a competitive keyword, if your site take too long to load, you won’t see the desired outcome out of that visitor.  This is especially relevant to E-commerce sites.

Have “spammy” footer links worked for you?  Do you think all this hoopla about page load times is nothing but a waste of time?  Feel free to post your comments or email them via webmaster at SEO lair dot com.

Key SEO News From Pubcon Las Vegas is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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SEO vs. PPC

There are always people in the digital marketing world that like to debate which channel is the best, SEO or PPC.  Although this question is very complex and could be split up into sub sections (better for what?), I have come up with a list of 10 reasons why SEO is better than PPC.  Now this is not an official opinion on which is better.  Both are good for different things, however, if I had to defend SEO this would be my reasoning…

10. SEO is not advertising- Two thirds of Americans object to online tracking. (See Article Here)  It is safe to assume that same 2/3 would also object to that information being used to better serve online ads.  SEO is not seen as advertising but rather an organic result to a search.  PPC is seen as exactly what it is, advertising.  While this could be a benefit if the user is far enough along in the buying cycle, in general it is not.

9. SEO has more credibility- This goes along with #10 somewhat.  Google prides and markets themselves as the company that delivers the most useful and relevant results to users.  As a by product of this, sites appearing in Google’s organic listing are going to receive an inherit credibility that.  In PPC, this credibility is only given to those advertisers with strong brands.

8. SEO has viral potential- There are numerous examples of viral campaigns that catch fire and usually deliver awareness and high amounts of traffic, not to mention links.  Link bait is a popular strategy used in SEO.  Part of the benefit to create and distribute link bait is because of its viral potential.  PPC for the most part, does not have the chance to spread virally.  Some PPC campaigns may land users on a unique or interesting page which could be turned into link bait, however PPC is not going to have the same promotional effects on that page when compared to SEO.

7. SEO requires good site structure and organization- PPC lands users on one specific page, usually with an offer or lead form of some kind depending on the goal of the campaign.  SEO requires the entire site, not just page, be optimized and user friendly.  Large companies such as Home Depot who run a ton of PPC campaigns, usually have awful sites from a search engine perspective.  This is because PPC doesn’t have any requirements in order to rank, i.e you pay for the placement.  Some people might argue that PPC landers need to be user friendly, have certain elements, be A/B tested, etc…which is true.  This does not mean, however, that SEO landing pages are not user friendly. Google is constantly trying to force SEO’s to make user friendly pages through various changes to ranking factors within the Google algorithm.

6. SEO makes the user experience better- Ever notice how when you click on a PPC ad the only thing you can do on the page is fill out a lead form?  This is because a lot of PPC campaigns send users to a single page with a single offer.  SEO lands users on a page within a site, complete with relevant internal links and information.  Maybe the user wants to read more information.  With PPC they have to click back to Google and then do a search for the product or company they saw on the PPC lander.  With SEO they can easily click to any part of the site, explore the product, the company etc…Sure there are good PPC campaigns which also land users on pages with relevant information and internal links.  Unfortunately, those campaigns are currently the minority.

SEO vs PPC Long Term

5. SEO is long term- SEO delivers lasting, long term benefits.  PPC is sort of like paid link building…Once you stop paying, your results disappear.  It cannot be overlooked, however, that PPC has certain long term benefits: the longer you run your campaign and the more history you have, the lower CPC you’ll be paying.  Either way SEO delivers long term benefits that PPC does not.

4. SEO is more complex- Some of you may be thinking, isn’t complexity a bad thing?  Let me explain.  It is harder to track what factors cause one site to rank vs another because there are a multitude of factors which go into the organic rankings.  The key here is that it is harder for competitors to reverse engineer your strategies.  With PPC your looking a a limited number of factors such as bid and quality score.  There are a million tools to see exactly which words your competitors are buying, what ad copy they are running, where they are landing users, and even what they are bidding!  With SEO, because influential factors are less transparent and harder to track, it is harder for competitors to copy your strategy.  It is important to point out that there are also tools available to see almost anything you want about a competitors SEO campaign.  The difference is that because it is so much more complex and time consuming, competitors are less likely to research and implement your strategy.  Let’s also not forget that the complexities of SEO are part of what makes it fun!

3. SEO results are more relevant- 72.3% of Google users and 60.8% of Yahoo users find natural search results to be the most relevant to their searches (Source Here).  Relevancy is key.  If you rank (SEO or PPC) for irrelevant search terms, you will have an extremely low click through rate and an abysmal conversion rate.  Google and Bing are currently in a branding war to be the search engine which provides the most relevant results. Bing’s current slogan is that they are the “cure for search overload syndrome”.  The search engines naturally make SEO better than PPC for relevance using various ranking factors.

2. SEO drives more traffic- 75% of users click on organic rankings as opposed to paid listings.  In theory on a single keyword search, organic rankings drive 300% more traffic than PPC. That’s just from the search engines alone.  In addition, SEO provides traffic from a variety of sources.  One link in one article might be picked up by 5 other sites who will send traffic via the included link.  I will point out  that PPC delivers much more qualified traffic.  This alone is a heavily debated topic- is it better to have a large quantity of unqualified traffic or a lower volume of qualified traffic?  It all depends on the goals of the campaign.

1. SEO is free- OK, OK, it’s not technically free.  Sure there is the time you put in, paid links you buy, agency fees, etc…It is free in the sense that you do not pay Google one cent for the traffic they send you.  In addition your ROI (ROAS) is significantly higher with SEO when compared to PPC.  This is, of course, time sensitive.  ROI for an SEO campaign is going to be very low during the beginning stages and higher in the long term.

Remember, I am not in any way saying SEO is better than PPC.  They are both good at doing different things.  For example PPC is great for quickly testing multiple offers, landing pages, on page elements, etc…It is also great for easily determining the point of entry to your website.  Finally, search engines treat you like a valued partner.  I can’t begin to illustrate how well the media teams on big name PPC accounts are treated by the the major engines vs how SEO’s are treated.

Have an opinion on this post?  Want to defend PPC or bring up additional info?  Please post your comments or feel free to email me at webmaster@seolair.com.

SEO vs PPC: 10 Reasons SEO Is Better Than PPC is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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Be An SEO CHampion

Everyone wants to be the champ. In terms of professional SEO this means delivering results based on success metrics. These are usually things like SEO revenue, organic leads, etc…Whatever your SEO goals are, achieving high rankings for relevant/high converting keywords is always a supporting metric- sometimes the primary one.

The SEO champs are those who are keen to Google’s algorithm and act accordingly. With over 300 factors in Google’s Algorithm, this can be a daunting task. A good starting point is to figure out which factors are the most influential and develop your SEO strategies with those ranking factors in mind. But its not all about optimizing for the top ranking factors.

There are also plenty of actions SEO’s can take that might hinder rankings or potentially hurt a clients site. I know what your thinking…I can’t possibly reverse engineer Google’s algorithm! I don’t have time to do endless and tiring split tests! Well lucky for you I’ve compiled the top 5 most influential ranking factors as well as the top 5 practices you want to stray away from. Note that Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving. 10 minutes after this article is posted, things could change. That’s part of the fun!

Top 5 Most Influential Ranking Factors:

1. External Links with Keyword Anchor Text
2. Quality of External Links
3. Keyword Use in Title Tag (Specifically in the first phrase)
4. Diversity of Link Sources
5. Domain Authority and Trust

Top 5 Most Hurtful SEO Practices:

1. Cloaking With Deceitful Intent
2. Site Downtime and/or Inaccessibility
3. Links from Spam Link Farms
4. Hidden Text (Using Either Colors or other HTML methods)
5. Links From KNOWN Link Networks

Of course there are more influential and harmful SEO practices, however following the top 5 will put you on your way to better rankings. While this seems simple, the details of each factor is complex. Check back with SEO Lair next time for an in depth analysis of each factor. Find out what each factor is, how to see if your doing it right, and how to change if your not.

Be An SEO Champ is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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SEO Core Metrics

I was recently asked the following question by someone in the SEO community: “How can I show value if traffic and rankings aren’t increasing?”

Many SEOs tend to focus on what I would consider “core seo metrics”, meaning rankings, traffic, and other client specific KPI’s such as leads, revenue, etc…When reporting on these metrics, it can be hard to show value, especially in early stages when you are doing initial work that might not be increasing these core seo metrics.

Another issue to point out is how competitive most “official” keyword lists are. Clients tend to want to load keywords chock full of the most competitive high volume terms relevant to their business and who can blame them? The problem with this for SEOs is that there are usually tons of torso and head terms which the client’s domain is ranking for. Since these aren’t be monitored or included on the “official” keyword list, the SEO consultant/agency usually does not receive credit for these rankings.

These “total rankings” are good way to show value if traffic and rankings aren’t going up. Use a tool like SEM Rush and monitor how many keywords the site is ranking for. Usually good domains are ranking for torso and tail terms that aren’t be monitored by the keywords list. You should be getting credit as the SEO for all keywords the domain is ranking for, even if its not on the “official” keyword list.

There are other metrics you can use depending on the goals of the client. For example you can monitor how much buzz there is around your client on social media sites if one of their goals is to increase visibility/awareness.

Another great way to show success outside of core seo metrics are “soft” metrics. These include things like average time on site, bounce rate, page views per visit, etc… Why are these helpful in adding value? A site’s traffic may not be increasing, but the quality of the traffic may be better. These soft metrics show how valuable/qualified a visitor to the site is. Soft metrics are also sometimes referred to as “engagement” metrics as they show how engaged visitors are.

Showing Success Outside Of Core SEO Metrics is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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3. Key SEO News From Pubcon Las Vegas

Seo for beginners and first time webmasters can be hard work. The average webmaster likes to talk about their most important keywords. These words are usually the most competitive, have the highest volume, and are the most broad in scope. Very few webmasters know enough about SEO to really do anything about their so called “money keywords”.

These often overlooked search terms, that are so important to a website’s placement in the search rankings, are a vital component of any search engine optimization (SEO) effort.

Without keywords for the search engines to index, there is literally nothing to find in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Keywords are the function of the search engines. As a result of those searches, the your most important keywords are what lead potential customers to your web pages Take care of your keywords, and they will take care of you.

The importance of keywords to a website is felt in two ways. The first area of consideration, when writing the on page and off page content, is keyword placement on the page. Where the keywords are located is important, to varying degrees, with the major search engines.

The second area of importance for keywords is their density on the page. How many keywords appear on the page, makes a difference to all of the search engine algorithms. The choice of which keywords to target on a page is often of vital importance, especially for highly competitive keywords.

Keyword factors for consideration

Each search engine, from industry dominant Google, to Yahoo, to Bing, to the various other search engines, has a different keyword calculation. Some search engines permit heavier keyword numbers and density on the page, while some like Google, have much stricter allowable density levels. The placement of keywords, in any number of locations on the page, has different results in the various search engines as well.

Consideration must also be given to such additional on page keyword modifications as bolding, italic, and actual keyword type size used. Other factors include the use of page titles, and their relative importance to the various search engines, as keyword delivery vehicles.

Consideration has to be given to the incoming link anchor text to a web page. Any linked off page content is, in fact, part of the receiving page’s total content. Taking into consideration, both the placement and density of a web page’s keywords, will pay dividends for any website owner. Fortunately, keywords can be used in such a way as to propel a site higher in the search engine rankings.

While there are certainly no magic formulas, a few common sense ideas will pay off for most web pages. Check back for Part 2 where you will find out how to laser target your keywords in an effort to rank in the major search engines!

Laser targeting the keywords

When planning which keywords to target on a page, a plan of action
should be the first step. Be sure to choose only one, or two at most
two keyword, for the focus of your efforts. In highly competitive
keyword situations, no more than one keyword should be the topic on
any page.

Keep the long term goal in mind, of ranking high for a particular
keyword or keyword phrase. To score highly for that selected search
term, a concentrated effort is essential. Think one keyword, with
accompanying phrase, maximum for each page. In a competitive search
field, the single keyword approach is the only one worth employing,
if you want to rank well at all.

The site’s home page and internal pages should have slightly
different focus, but should be created with the overall goal in mind.
This is especially important for highly competitive keyword
situations. Often a series of pages, each one supporting the others
in an overall theme, is necessary to provide added keyword power.
Since low, medium, and highly competitive keyword conditions require
differing strategies, they need individual consideration.

For lower competitive search terms, there is no real need to
concentrate a page’s entire effort on a single keyword. In fact, it
might not be the best practice in that case at all. A website owner
can target two or even three low competition keywords on a page.

With few webmasters targeting those search terms, the page can be
focussed on all of them, ensuring the page be found by many different
searches. Of course, not all keywords are that easily optimized.

Moderately competitive keywords comprise perhaps the largest category
of search terms. A helpful practice, in the case of medium level
difficulty keywords is to use them all on the home page. By placing
the keywords front and center on the website’s home page, they become
the focus of several themes on the site.

Each targeted keyword should then be provided with individually
linked, and theme clustered internal supporting pages. By providing
additional theme and topic related pages, the keywords are given
extra support, and overall on and off page density.

For highly competitive keywords, much more concentrated effort must
be applied, to the highly sought after search term. In heavy
competition, only one keyword per page may be targeted. Any more than
that, and the page’s keyword focus is lost. The entire effort of that
page must be on that one all important search term.

Many additional focussed pages, perhaps even starting on the path to
an authority site, must also be created to support that highly
competitive keyword as well. The object is to create a powerful
website theme, built around that single keyword. Anything less, and
the site will not be able to compete for that term at all.

Regardless of the level of competition, it’s a good idea to become
dominant in as many search terms within the site’s topic as possible.
Once top search rankings are achieved with an important keyword, move
to the next one. The more keywords are controlled, the more paths are
available to enter the website, resulting in huge increases in
visitor traffic.

Seo For Beginners: Keyword Density is a post from: SEO For Beginners

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1. Showing Success Outside Of Core SEO Metrics