Internet Marketing | Seo Affiliate Internet Marketing » SEO

SEO Pressor Product Review

admin — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:04:07 +0000

Product Review #1 (450 Words)

How SEOPressor Can Save Your Optimization Time Immensely

SEOPressor is a tool that is used by people all over the world for their on-page optimization needs. Simply put, this is a program that can definitely elevate the standard of your website, in the manner that it helps your website reach out on the Internet. The simple logic here is that if your website can reach out to more people, it will have more business, and that’s exactly what SEOPressor helps you achieve. As you get even the top position on Google within your niche—which is something that SEOPressor has achieved time and again—it becomes very a given that your business prospects are only going to improve.

The one fact is—you are going to optimize your website in some way or the other, with or without a software application. But if you are planning to do things manually, the big drawback is that you won’t get the time to pursue your main business itself. internet marketing and SEO is a highly time-consuming activity, and you will find yourself wasting a great deal of time in blogging, marketing with articles, submitting to directories, sending emails to other webmasters for sharing links with them and so on.

Naturally, these things are going to take a lot of your time. Now just think—if you would just delegate all this work to a tool like internet marketing and SEOPressor, won’t you be saving some immense amount of time? Time that you could better use in increasing your business?

Probably it is this thought that is making a lot of people invest in SEOPressor today. The following are some time-consuming things that SEOPressor can do for webmasters:-

1. It finds out the hottest keywords on the Internet marketing and seo and tells you how you can use them. It keeps monitoring the keywords and continuously makes suggestions. It also tells you what density you should use the keyword in and what special formatting you need to keep it. All these things could be very time-consuming if done manually.

2. The program also looks at the tags you have used and makes suggestions on how to improve prospects. It makes suggestions on which tagging formats should be used—H1, H2 or H3—and carries it out by itself.

3. If you run a blog, SEOPressor will look at your individual posts and suggest changes if anything is wrong. It also tells you the value of each of your existing posts.

So, it is not just about optimizing your on-page needs but it is also about actually suggesting changes. The program is quite faithful to you; like an obedient animal it will do your bidding and improve the chances of your website on the Internet.

===> Watch Video Review Here

Optimizing Your WordPress Blog for the Search Engines (joelcomm.com)
The Best Plugin for SEO? – Our SEOPressor Plugin Review (cash-bandit.com)
Seo Business Box Uncovers #1 Search Rankings Secrets (ronmedlin.com)

Tab Phishing

QuadsZilla — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:16:37 +0000

Be careful: This is one clever attack vector.

As Mozilla Firefox creative lead Aza Raskin describes it, the attack is as elegant as it is simple: A user has multiple tabs open, and surfs to a site that uses special javacript code to silently alter the contents of a tabbed page along with the information displayed on the tab itself, so that when the user switches back to that tab it appears to be the login page for a site the user normally visits.

Hat tip to Marlon.

Best Practices In SEO And Marketing: IMS MN 2010

Adam Singer — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:27:06 +0000

At the recent Minneapolis Integrated Marketing Summit, TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden moderated an exciting panel of a diverse group of SEO professionals:

Alex Bennert – Chief Search Strategist at The Wall Street Journal
Brian Kleisner – Search Engine Marketing Manager for FindLaw
Bill Leake – CEO of Apogee Results

The focus of the panel was on search engine optimization best practices, and panelists discussed everything from leveraging web analytics for decision making to how to scale efforts and many topics in between. Following is a summary of each presenter’s top points:

Alex Bennert – Chief Search Strategist at The Wall Street Journal

Alex spoke on the important of using data to make decisions, including leveraging sources such as Google webmaster tools. The information provided in webmaster tools has grown significantly since they have implemented it.

Her favorite addition is the “breaking data” feature, which tells you all of your top keywords driving traffic to the site. You can use this to see terms that gain a high volume of impressions but a low volume of clicks. From this, you’ll know that the page can be optimized better to potentially get more clicks.

And it doesn’t even have to be on page or changing keywords. Sometimes, just testing changes in meta description can help gain additional clicks. It’s something we have control over and can see near immediate results for changes. Leverage meta descriptions for clicks, and to help promote your brand and spread key messages.

Have you given access of webmaster tools to members of your team? You should consider this so they can act on data.

Additionally, branded searches and navigational queries are extremely valuable for a brand and should not be discounted. At the WSJ, hundreds of thousands see our search result monthly from brand terms.

Alex then proceeded to speak on sitemaps. She noted, if you have a large enterprise level site with frequent information that’s added/deleted, a sitemap is vital. That’s because you don’t have to wait for search engines to re-crawl your site, you’re providing it to them in a format they’ll immediately get. At the Wall Street Journal, we organize our sitemaps into specific types of content – i.e. stock queries, articles, etc. Then we can see immediately when problems crop up.

In terms of getting “old school” reporters to create additional content, like to help them see the value of SEO by showing examples of their own content. For example, I find a headline they wrote and show them how not at all findable in search, whereas others are easily findable. By showing examples, Alex is able to be persuasive and help reporters create SEO friendly content.

Brian Kleisner – Search Engine Marketing Manager for FindLaw

Brian spoke on the balance between search, and how search interacts with usability.

“Arriving from search is to enter the unknown:”

1. The searcher’s expectation for what they think they’ll find must be met.

2. Information must be presented to enable a decision or make choices.

3. The next steps must be clear.

4. The entire experience must feel safe, secure, authentic and believable.

Usability and search both share common concerns:

Findable
Credibility
Usable/useful
Valuable/desirable
Offering choice

Addressing this, Brian went on to cite several SEO tips:

SEO Tip #1: Use a keyword oriented tagline with the “Who” and “What answered.

SEO Tip #2: Use content to answer the questions naturally making sure to include the appropriate keyword. For example:

Where is your company located?
When is the next release for “keyword”?
Why are you an expert on “keyword”?

Asking these questions helps generate fresh content, better defines anchor text, provides new ideas for navigation text link labels and increases understandability for humans, search and those using assistive technology to interact with your website.

SEO Tip #3: Consider local SEO

Local search has special rules for SEO:

Claim your listings on the search engines and beyond (Yelp, CitySearch, etc.)
Be consistent, use the same address and phone number across the web.
Monitor and manage you and your competitor’s reputation.

Bill Leake – CEO of Apogee Results

Bill spoke about integration opportunities between Search and other marketing tactics.

He started by speaking at a high level, and that “more arrows are generally good.” Marketing works best when it works together. As we talk about ways to improve search, remember it is just another piece of marketing.

Start by defining what you really want from your marketing efforts and create a key objective.

Bill then shared integrated tactics that will improve ROI of search.

1. Integrate paid media and “earned media” for better results.

Online favorable articles/analyst pieces
Optimized press release mentions
Promote 3^rd party blog posts

2. Consider event and name driven paid and natural search.

Leverage a national events and names for dirt cheap search traffic.

3. House list/direct mail tie-ins: integrate online marketing with more traditional focused direct marketing (think online mail-merge).

4. Create a more integrated search – use PPC traffic with your web analytics and your lead forms for list building and enhances lead generation. Leverage services such as

DemandBase
Jigsaw
Other list building via web traffic

Most B2B terms are not looked at “for fun” they are looked at due to pain points on the part of the searcher.

5. Improve spending by using down-funnel data.

One client was spending 110K per month with well understood and optimized CPL metrics. They started doing PPC optimization using human scrubbed lead data (not web forms). Results: 43% shift in PPC spend allocation, 31% software sales uplift.

6. Choose keywords on conversion metrics, not on search/reach/volume metrics. If you have paid search data, use that to determine what the money keywords are.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Best Practices In SEO And Marketing: IMS MN 2010 |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Enterprise SEO Interview with Scott Skurnick of Edmunds.com

Lee Odden — Tue, 25 May 2010 11:45:41 +0000

Spotlight on Search Interview with Scott Skurnick of Edmunds.com

For every SEO guru speaking at a conference, there are 10 or 20 more SEO experts you might not have heard of, making things happen in amazing ways. Scott Skurnick has worked in the Search Marketing industry as long as anyone I know on the conference speaking circuit and has a tremendous amount of experience and expertise to share.

In this interview, Scott shares his journey to become Executive Director of Search Engine Optimization and User Insights at Edmunds.com, his take on social media and SEO, scalability of SEO, tips on audits, best practices, tools and more.

You’re a long time consumer products search marketer, having worked at companies like Circuit City, OfficeMax and currently with Edmunds.com. What made you decide to work in the search marketing industry and what do you like best about it?

Actually I got my start with Search Marketing in Mexico City when I was working in the Tequila industry. I had worked for Jose Cuervo for a number of years and then went to work for their main competitor at the time which was Tequila Sauza. When I launched the first brand websites back in 1995 I became obsessed with Tequila Sauza being the number one result in Yahoo and Alta Vista for the query “tequila”. Of course that wasn’t a very hard task because there weren’t a lot of tequila related sites but the whole concept of search engines intrigued me.

The thing that I like the most about our industry is the fact that it is ever-changing and there are no “absolute” answers. The end goal is the same for everyone in SEO in that we want to generate both traffic and some kind of conversion. What differs is how we reach that goal. Everyone’s SEO recipe is a little different and who’s to say that their approach is any better than someone else’s. What’s not to like about this?

What job skills and career advice can you offer to Search Marketers that want to work in-house vs working at an agency? Do you think it’s reasonable for companies to expect SEMs to be advanced at both SEO & PPC? And Social?

There are a couple of necessary skills that most people don’t speak of. I won’t get into the debate of whether or not we should be able to write code because I think it depends on the situation. The list of skills and qualities I feel are necessary for a successful in-house SEO are:

Must be highly analytical
Understand how the different parts of an organization work
Have Great negotiating skills
Be likeable and never bite the hand that feeds you (developers and writers)
Be curious and never think you know everything
Be humble. You have to be able to admit your mistakes, we all make them especially working in SEO
Most importantly, you have to have thick skin. You will always have your doubters and people who want to see you fail because they don’t believe in SEO.

While I feel it is vital that an in-house SEO understand both Paid Search and Social, depending on the size of the company it may not be realistic for one person to manage all 3 areas. All 3 are highly specialized and changing very quickly. More importantly, you can easily ruin a company by committing errors in any of these 3 and errors usually occur when there is a lack of understanding or knowledge. At my current company we have separate teams handling PPC, SEO and Social and this seems to work the best. Of course we all interact and share information but at the end of the day we have an expert for each channel.

Speaking of social, what are some of the ways you’ve made SEO content more social at Edmunds.com? What are some of the immediate opportunities within the social web to advance SEO goals?

When we talk about Social Media at Edmunds, we are really talking about Forums, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Edmunds has been running an online automotive community (forums) since 1996 which is, for the most part, based on SEO best practices. As far as Facebook and Twitter are concerned, our editorial and PR teams are directly involved. While we do engage in some auto-tweets, the majority of what we put out there has an original voice to it. We also actively engage with people who are discussing our brand or the automotive market in general.

The biggest Social Media opportunity for us is brand promotion and audience engagement. Our content travels very well. Not only do we review almost every vehicle imaginable, but we also have a data department that is responsible for coming up with industry sales forecasts and results. When we issue a sales forecast or summary, this information is immediately picked up and re-tweeted or shared via Facebook.

Many agency marketers say quality SEO cannot scale because working with many different types of web sites and companies is unpredictable. Do you think that’s true for in-house SEO?

I couldn’t disagree more. Since 1995 I’ve worked as an in-house online marketer with tequila, office supplies, consumer electronics and automobiles. I view myself as product agnostic. For me it is all about the marketing channel. Of course every industry and website presents a different set of challenges but I’ve always followed the same SEO blueprint. The SEO blueprint changes due to the elastic nature of our industry but I’m going to apply pretty much the same strategy regardless of the product I’m trying to promote. Some sites may require more effort when it comes to link building while others may need better editorial content but at the end of the day the basic SEO infrastructure is very similar.

What are some of the common obstacles with large retailer web sites when it comes to SEO? What makes a successful large site SEO program so successful?

Enemy #1 is the CMS. Most large retail sites use shiny and expensive out of the box systems which are great for everything but SEO. From dynamic parameters in url strings (no not just 1 or 2) to duplicate title and description tags across hundreds or thousands of pages, most CMS’s just don’t know how to handle SEO. Add in code bloat and duplicate pages across multiple categories and there is enough to keep any SEO busy for years. The other big issue is unique content. Too many large retail sites don’t put in the effort to write unique and appealing product descriptions so their Sony Plasma TV description is the same as hundreds of others across the web.

As far as what makes a large site SEO program a success, this is very cliché but I dare any in-house SEO to disagree. It comes down to education and compromise. Until everyone in the organization has a very basic understanding of SEO, you will have a hard time getting a SEO project to succeed. The developers need to understand why you are asking them to change the code and the writers need to understand why you are asking them to change their titles. You never ever want to mandate change because this will only make you enemies. You also have to understand that sometimes SEO has to take a backseat to a more important goal. There are few instances where SEO and usability or SEO and development conflict with each other but when they do, you need to choose what’s best for the company. Never ever let your ego get in the way.

Let’s say a friend shows you his new retail product web site and asks you to do a SEO audit. What are 4-5 things you would look for?

Any audit starts with a simple question; are you willing to go under the hood and make potentially large scale changes…If the answer is yes then:

Need to understand the CMS / Shopping Cart solution and see if it’s flexible.
I’m checking urls, most retail web sites use too many dynamic parameters
I’m making sure a product only lives in one department / category. If it doesn’t I’m using the canonical tag (worst case scenario) or convincing him to change his categorization.
Making sure his product descriptions are unique and in-depth. Too many ecommerce sites use canned descriptions.
Making sure he is letting his customers review the products. You can say what you want about the now defunct Circuit City on the store side, but the web site had by far the most comprehensive customer product reviews on the web and these generated considerable SE traffic.

What are your favorite web based SEO and social media marketing tools?

For SEO: Bruce Clay Toolset, SEOmoz Pro Tools, Xenu, Majestic SEO, Ranking Manager and Wordtracker. For Social Media: Co-tweet, Klout and wefollow. I also set up a really nice reputation management dashboard based on a post from aimClear a while back.

What role does social media optimization play in an overall SEO program? Do you think it’s worth optimizing content for search within social media sites like Facebook or MySpace?

Social media is important in that we want to let people consume our content wherever they feel comfortable. We try and optimize the content for the channel but not necessarily for search engines. We don’t create special content hoping to create a temporary lift from social media and we definitely don’t promote all our content via social channels. The worst thing a brand can do is abuse Twitter or Facebook. Our users can smell a “hyped” story from a mile away.

Staying on top of best practices in general and specifically for what’s most important to the web sites you’re working on can be a challenge. What do you do to stay current? What blogs do you read? Do you have favorite conferences, books, forums or newsletters?

I easily spend the first hour of every morning going over my analytics and reading up on the latest SEO news. As far as the sites I visit, they include: Search Engine Land, Michael Gray’s Blog, WebmasterWorld, WebProNews, MediaPost, paidContent.org and the IAB. I also love 1938media.com, it keeps me grounded. I don’t really go to a lot of conferences but I have been attending PubCon since 2005 and SMX Advanced since it started. PubCon is great because there is something for everyone and SMX Advanced is one of the few conferences where experienced SEO’s can learn something. The one conference I would love to attend but haven’t been able to yet is the Search & Social Spring Summit.

Thank you Scott!

Scott has been working in online marketing since 1995 in industries ranging from Tequila to Automobiles. He’s an avid Packers and Soccer fan and live in Redondo Beach, CA with his wife and two girls. You can find him on Twitter, LinkedIn and working hard on SEO at Edmunds.

Spotlight on Search is an interview series that shines a light on search marketing professionals to learn more about the nature of their work, differences in SEO amongst categories of web sites and of course, SEO tips, tactics and useful tools. We do not take PR firm pitch suggestions or solicitations for these interviews. They are by request from TopRank Online Marketing Blog editorial staff only.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Enterprise SEO Interview with Scott Skurnick of Edmunds.com |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

7 Essential SEO Tips for Small Businesses

Glen — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:30:59 +0000

When it comes to marketing in the current economy, small businesses need all the help they can get. They don’t have the ad budgets, the personnel or the time that the bigger competition has. But none of those factors really matter to search engines, and SEO is a great way to both level the playing field and steal marketshare.

Here are a few tips that small businesses can use to improve their SEO and user experience.

1. Turn everything into content

Content is still King. Search engines still love unique content, and the more useful content there is on your website, the more opportunities you give searchers to find your products and services. Rob Snell gave a fabulous presentation at PUBCON South, and one of the main takeaways was how to turn everything on an e-commerce site into content. Here are some ways to “free” extra content on your site. Here were some of his tips:

Record everything and transcribe it all into text. Interviews, conversations, product DVD’s, personal opinions, etc.
Turn support emails into FAQ pages on your site
Turn PDF’s into HTML pages (although PDF files can rank on their own)
Start generating videos of everything

2. Make it personal

Small businesses have a major advantage that most bigger businesses don’t: A personal voice. By making your voice heard, you’re showcasing your authority in your market, and adding trust. Buyers love hearing recommendations or reviews, and are more influenced to buy from those vs. product feature and benefit pages. Consumers use search engines to research products, and other than the lowest price, they’re looking for recommendations. Give them some! If you have a catalog, make a buyers guide in addition to product listings. Show you’re an expert and turn your knowledge into personalized business. Teaching is a great way to make sales.

3. Optimize for local search

Odds are that your small business can take advantage of local search. 63% of consumers use search engines to research information about local companies. Start with Thomas’ excellent guide on local SEO tips that range from claiming your profile to adding media to submitting to content aggregators.

4. Improve your site’s speed

Small business sites can be notoriously slow. Site speed is usually one of the last things that small business owners care about. But now that Google has introduced speed into the ranking algorithm, it’s time to seriously start checking out how fast your site loads. But more importantly, when you improve your site’s speed, you’re also improving your customer’s experience. Don’t make users wait to buy your products! You can use tools like Web Page Analyzerand the Firefox extension YSlow! to see what’s taking your pages so long to load. If you’re using a blog or shopping cart software, search for caching plugins for your software.

5. Refine internal linking

Internal links can add value to your site considerably, but many small businesses don’t understand that you have to develop a linking mindset in order to really capitalize on it. It takes extra time to research old post links and include them in your articles, but the benefits are great. Sites like Copyblogger do an excellent job of referencing older posts in their articles. Not only does this strategy help with SEO, it also adds to the user experience, giving them more Think long and hard about your site’s linking architecture. Is your navigation schema getting to all of your content? Aside from adding sitemaps, related products and posts keep both visitors and search engines happy. Popular posts lists are also great for making sure your best content is getting seen and linked to.

6. Create content for people

If you’re generating content specifically for search engines, you’re missing a major chunk of your market. Humans don’t like to be bamboozled, and when they come to a page on your site that was obviously made for a search engine, they’ll leave in a hurry and never come back. Plus, only humans can link to your site. If you want to get more inbound links and retain customers, you need to write for customers. The goal to higher search results is still to get more people to your site. After all, search engines can’t buy anything from you.

7. Don’t fret about getting nofollow links

It’s easy to get carried away with only trying to get incoming links without the dreaded nofollow. But really, a link is still a link. If that link can bring in a potential customer, then you want it. If you’re only looking for specific types of incoming links, than odds are you’re missing lots of the low-hanging backlink fruit and worrying about the wrong things.

Who knows how long the nofollow link will be around? If you’re smart, you worry about what’s most important: creating great content. You can’t control how Google ranks things in the future. Focus on things you can control, like creating a killer experience for your customers. In the end, if you focus on giving your customers and visitors great content, many aspects of SEO will take care of itself. Great content attracts great links, especially when you promote it and leverage social SEO channels of distribution. If it’s good for your potential customers, odds are it’s good for SEO too.

10 Easy Local SEO & Online Marketing Tips

Thomas McMahon — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:45:46 +0000

There are currently 29.6 million small businesses in the U.S. (SCORE). 63% of consumers and small business owners use the Iinternet to find information about local companies and 82% use search engines (Webvisible & Nielsen). That means there’s a lot of opportunity for local SEO.

Recently I attended GetListed.org’s Local University in Minneapolis which focused on how to optimize web sites for local search. Out of all the good information that came out of the event, here are 10 easy things you can do today to optimize sites and content to attract local customers.

1. Claim your profile.
It’s as simple as logging into Google Places, Bing Local and Yahoo Local and walking through the verification steps which include a phone call or post card to verify your address.

2. Upload Pictures.
The local sites listing services like to provide their users with pictures of your business. To help ensure that they see some good pictures, upload your own. They don’t have to be professional photos, but they will represent your business so make sure they are decent.

3. Control information across the internet.
A big part of local search optimization and marketing involves obtaining information from other sites. Local listing aggregation services search the internet far and wide to find pictures, reviews and any information they can on your company. Submit your info to services like Localeze & infoUSA.

The downside here is that if something is incorrect on another site, it could find its way back into your local listing. If that happens, you have to go back to the source and ask them to fix the issue and then wait while the fix makes its way into local sites.

4. Ask for reviews.
Most local sites, except for Yelp, are fine with you telling your customers to review you. So do it. On your contact form thank you page, on invoices, on email communications, make a point to say “Hey we’d love it if you gave our business a review on Google/Bing/Yahoo Local.” These reviews, good or bad, make your business more creditable to future customers.

5. Bad reviews are good.
No company is perfect, so when users see all positive reviews, something looks wrong and they may actually choose a different company. Bad reviews are a part of any business and a few bad reviews can make the good reviews that much better. Obviously, you don’t want to encourage bad reviews.

6. Add local phone number.
On your website, be sure to publish your local phone number in text vs within an image or not at all. 800 numbers may be nice, but on their own they don’t give any kind of location indication.

7. Have a full physical mailing address on all pages of your website.
Your address is important and it should be on all pages of your website to re-enforce your geographic location.

8. Think like the searcher/customer.
What would your customers put in a search box to find you and buy your products?

Lets say you own an outdoor sporting good store; like hunting, camping, hiking and fishing. If a searcher puts put ’shoes’ into a search box, they probably aren’t a good match as it’s such a generic term. If they put ‘running shoes’ you’re still not a match as your sporting goods store doesn’t focuses on running. If they put in ‘hiking shoes’ then you want to target them.

Business owners often get caught up in popular keywords or keywords that will drive a lot of traffic and forget to focus on less popular keywords that have a higher probability of making sales.

Remember to think like the customer.

9. Multiple locations need multiple landing pages.
Local sites don’t like a business having more than one local listing, but if the business has two locations, than that’s OK. However, you should ensure that each location links back to a page on your website that is all about that location and what it has to offer. Sending both local listings back to the same page, or homepage, isn’t ideal.

10. Treat Customers ‘Righter’
Everyone knows that they need to treat the customer right, but with social media, review sites and the ability for good, or bad, news to spread like wildfire, you need to treat your customers really good or “righter”. This includes online and offline customer service.

Local search takes into account information business owners put in their local profile, information it finds on other sites and information on the business’ website. Even what happens offline can be taken into consideration as customers may bring back those experiences in the form of online reviews.

Local search is it’s own unique entity as no one can control everything that appears on their local listing, but business owners can take steps to ensure that what gets listed is a good representation of the company. For more information, here is a list of local SEO blogs that we’ve reviewed in the past for TopRank’s BIGLIST with many, many more tips.

10 Easy Local SEO & Online Marketing Tips

Thomas McMahon — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:45:46 +0000

7. Have a full physical mailing address on all pages of your website.
Your address is important and it should be on all pages of your website to re-enforce your geographic location.

8. Think like the searcher/customer.
What would your customers put in a search box to find you and buy your products?

Business owners often get caught up in popular keywords or keywords that will drive a lot of traffic and forget to focus on less popular keywords that have a higher probability of making sales.

Remember to think like the customer.

SEO at Turner Broadcasting: Interview with Dan Perry

Lee Odden — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:37:56 +0000

Spotlight on Search Interview with Dan Perry, SEO Director at Turner Broadcasting

Working with Enterprise SEO projects is compared to smaller company sites is as different as marketing to BtoC vs. BtoB customers. This interview with Dany Perry, the SEO Director for Turner Broadcasting covers his SEO dream job, in-house SEO career advice and skills, enterprise SEO, the future of outsourcing to agencies, being persuasive inside organizations and of course, Golf!

We met while you were with Cars.com and now you’re with Turner Broadcasting. (Congratulations) How did you get into the SEO world and what is it that keeps you there?

I started building very basic websites in 1998, but didn’t get into SEO until the summer of 2000. I built a site for a local golf course and a few months later, typed “Michigan golf” into a search engine. The site I built was on the first page! The light bulb went off immediately, and I’ve been promoting sites online ever since. The satisfaction of success is what keeps me in the industry. I’ve done enough SEO on sites of all sizes to know that it clearly works. Watching it work and seeing the baseline numbers for a site consistently increase over time is extremely satisfying.

What do you like best about your current position and company?

I’ll answer that with an example of a semi-typical day for me: Have an early conference call with London to discuss international SEO for Cartoon Network, have a meeting with PGA.com to discuss ongoing SEO Initiatives, meet with Topher Kohan (SEO Coordinator at CNN) to discuss strategy, have a call with NBA.com and TNT.tv to discuss the playoffs, and end the day by providing some Editorial SEO training to the team at Adult Swim. To have the opportunity to move the SEO needle on properties like these is truly a blessing. From an in-house SEO perspective, this job is as good as it gets.

You’ve spent a lot of time working on the client side with SEO. What advice do you have for individuals that would like to break into that kind of career path?

Doing in-house SEO in a large company is much different than doing it for yourself, or at a small company. I haven’t “done” SEO in years. My job is training others how to do it, and having them keep SEO top-of-mind. It requires an even temperament, the ability to explain why SEO should be prioritized to developers, executives, and everyone in-between, and a love of PowerPoint and Excel.

What skills should a corporate marketer develop in order to be capable of handling in-house SEO duties?

The ability to sell SEO internally. You may have to convince a developer to change the way they’ve always done things. You may have to convince an executive that SEO is a good business decision, and be able to back it up with numbers. I don’t believe that SEO starts at the top and works its way down, or vice versa. It has to happen at both ends (and in the middle) and then you need to keep it top-of-mind throughout the organization. To sum it up, a strong ability to sell internally, a logical approach, and an understanding of the SEO potential and the ability to put that potential into realistic forecasts.

Do you look for specific backgrounds, experience or skills when you hire in-house SEOs?

First of all, there has to be a base SEO skill-set; this cannot be overstated. There needs to be a level of SEO confidence that one can only gain with years of trial and error, dealing with algorithm changes, etc. Also, the ability to take a complex SEO element and describe it in a simple and easy-to-understand way is an under-rated skill. Finally, a diplomatic personality is key.

With enterprise SEO, you don’t get to roll up your sleeves and jump in with a program in most cases. What do you see as some of the more common challenges with achieving end-goal results from search engine optimization in a large or complex organization?

Prioritization. You and I both know that SEO is valuable, and can produce impressive results. My job is to convince an executive that SEO should be prioritized above the dozens of other possible projects. I need to pull together an SEO plan, forecast potential gains in traffic, and explain why this should be prioritized over other projects. The funny thing is that once that happens and you get approval, THEN the real work starts.

I’ve seen you present many times on in-house SEO panels, which btw, have been priceless for SEO agencies that work for large companies. Will companies still need to outsource SEO in the next 2-3 years?

I think so. There’s a lot of value an agency can add, even when there’s an internal team. For example, agency folks can see how an algorithm change affects many different companies and industries. Over time, the lessons learned from this broad collection of sites are invaluable.

What role do you see outside agencies playing?

Depends on the level of need within a given organization and the size/bandwidth of the internal employees.

Where are SEO agencies usually the most helpful?

Every property’s needs are different, so it needs to be property-specific and driven by the unique goals and needs of each. It can vary from assisting with major initiatives like a redesign to keyword research to spillover work.

What’s your best tip for getting other departments in an organization on “your side” when it comes to content creation, approval and promotion for advancing search marketing goals? Any examples?

Showing the opportunity lost in terms of traffic and revenue. For example, if one of our sites is on the second page of Google for a set of keyterms, and I can provide data that shows the potential gains they should receive (traffic gains, and revenue gains) by getting on page one, it makes the selling process much easier.

What are some of the common “low hanging fruit” SEO suggestions you see the most often with large site SEO? The classic of course, is updating one robots.txt file to stop blocking all bots.

The SEO maximization of publishing templates is a great place to start. Relatively small changes at the template level can have a big impact. Secondly, finding inbound links that produce 404 errors and converting them to 301 redirects.

Please share some of the SEO and Social Media tools that you like most:

Working with such big brands, a lot of the tools aren’t as important as they used to be. Because of that, I spend more times in our analytics package then I ever have before.

How do you stay current with SEO and all the marketing, technology and communication channels that come with it? What are your favorite conferences, blogs, newsletters, organizations, books or networks that you rely on?

I’m a big fan of David Meerman Scott’s book on the New Rules. He took a relatively complex subject and boiled it down into easy-to-understand language. My favorite book of all-time is Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. One of the few books that made me look at a website in a completely different way. When I attend conferences, I usually choose the sessions I’ll attend by speaker name rather than session description. Finally, the Planet Ocean SEO newsletter is one of the most consistent, well-written newsletters I’ve ever seen.

Since you’re a huge golf fan, do you have any interesting golf metaphors for SEO?

Love them both; here’s my top 10 list of similarities between golf and SEO:

Accept that you don’t know everything.
Learn by doing.
Measure often and pay attention to the numbers.
Be prepared for the worst-case scenario.
Learn from your mistakes.
Stick with it, even during the bad times.
Seek out good advice.
Luck is just that.
Use the right tools.
Be patient and think long term.

Thanks Dan!

You can find Dan online on his Blog, Twitter or LinkedIn.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
SEO at Turner Broadcasting: Interview with Dan Perry |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Beyond Google: SEO and the Social Web

Lee Odden — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:11:29 +0000

88 billion (OK, 87.8, we rounded up). That’s the number of search queries Google web properties are responsible for each month according to comScore.

Core to many search marketing strategies is to “Fish where the fish are” and make no mistake, the fish are decidedly hanging out on Google. YouTube, Gmail, Blogger.com and many other online services from Google make its presence ubiquotous in the online marketing world.

Now imagine if Google disappeared tomorrow. What would that do to your marketing? What would it do to your business?

Some of the people reading this post have experienced such a disappearance. Not of Google going away, but the experience of their own sites or pages disappearing from high visibility positions within Google search results.

Companies that hyper focus on Google or any singular online channel are not only putting themselves at risk, ala ‘all your eggs in one basket”, they’re also putting themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to search engine marketing.

This is the topic I presented on in the opening keynote at SearchExchange, a budding new search marketing conference held this week in Charlotte, NC. Here is a liveblog post of it from Raven Tools. The conference included familiar names including David Szetela, Chris Winfield, Brent Csutoras, Jon Henshaw, Rae Hoffman, Rhea Drysdale, Sarah Evans, Wayne Sutton and many others.

While Google and search engines present a tremendous opportunity to attract new business, support existing customers, attract new employees and media coverage plus a host of other search outcomes, it’s important to diversify online marketing in a way that also benefits overall search marketing.

There’s a segment of search marketers that use social media in a way that focuses on leveraging networks and influential “power” accounts to drive popularity and traffic to content. The boost in visibility exposes the content to blogs and online news sites, resulting in traffic as well as mentions and links from credible sources.

Social news and bookmarking services have been popular channels for this kind of SEO-centric social media marketing. With over 100 million accounts and growth of 300,000 new users per month, Twitter has been added to the mix as well. Well executed promotions or campaigns of this type can drive a substantial amount of traffic and attention.

Another way to include social media in a marketing strategy is to build connections, networks and community within areas of the social web that are meaningful for both short and long term business growth. For many companies, a relationship with customers is worth a lot more than a click, pageview or inbound link.

There’s a significant diversification and SEO productivity opportunity for companies that invest in the creation of an optimized content strategy that incorporates insights from buyer/searcher personas along with business goals. Following through with the development of channels of distribution for that content independent of, but complimentary to search engines like Google, provides exposure to relevant audiences, traffic and links.

“The advantage of adding social media search to your market research toolset is that you’ll get near real-time information that can help you get a head start on the competition on upcoming trends and get much richer detail than a list of generated keywords from search data can provide.”
Vanessa Fox, Author of Marketing in the Age of Google and creator of Google’s Webmaster Central.

The power of a social SEO program focused on content marketing enables companies to realize search engine marketing benefits as well as long term, meaningful connections with a community of customers. “Meaningful connections” means more word of mouth referrals, more purchases per customer, lower attrition and the opportunity to tap into an active fan base for research, consumer generated content and customer evangelists.

Inspired by Adam Singer’s graphic

Developing and promoting optimized content to relevant networks creates a Social and SEO cycle that expands reach, grows community and improves search engine visibility.

The 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey reports that 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations. In contrast, only 14% trust advertisements, (According to “Marketing to the Social Web” published by Wiley). Those statistics highlight the influence of consumer generated content and social network recommendations in contrast to traditional marketing and advertising.

The social web is growing at an incredible pace. According to their timeline, Facebook alone added over 200 million users in less than 12 months. Hitwise has reported that Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S. and comScore’s recent Search Engine Ranking report shows that Facebook search is more popular than AOL search. That means SEO for Facebook internal search along with SEO of other niche and internal search engines is something to pay attention to.

As the online experience of information discovery, consumption and sharing changes, so do consumer behaviors. Marketers need to be a few steps ahead of that and know what their customer behaviors are.

SEMPO recently released a new State of the Search Marketing Industry survey with insight specific to social media Marketing. In particular, it includes a number of data points on the intersection of search and social media: 35% of B2B companies integrate social media and search engine marketing programs. For B2C it’s 30%. There’s no reason for those numbers to go anywhere but up.

Marketing Sherpa’s recent Social Media Benchmark Report agrees and shows that SEO goals that social media achieves, very effectively, expanded content in universal search results, increased rankings,traffic from targeted keywords, improved ROI and more qualified leads.

The decision is yours to make. You can focus all your efforts on Google SEO, or you can develop a bigger picture perspective that creates additional relevant traffic channels to your content and at the same time, boosts search engine visibility. In essence, get better results from Google by not focusing exclusively on Google.

Social media marketing, regardless of who “owns” it in an organization can work in concert with SEO efforts to achive branding and community building goals as well as increasing search visibility, web site traffic and online leads/sales. Ultimately, Social SEO and Content Marketing result in more revenue and better customer relationships both in the short and the long term.

SEO at Wall Street Journal: Interview with Alex Bennert

Lee Odden — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:23:23 +0000

Spotlight on Search Interview with Alex Bennert, Chief Search Strategist at The Wall Street Journal

This interview with Alex Bennert, a longtime SEO professional with experience working on very large web sites such as Zillow and now with the Wall Street Journal, offers SEO career advice, explores the difference between in-house, agency and solo SEO practitioner, her experiences providing SEO services for a large publisher and the inevitable obsolescence of technical SEO. Oh yeah, we hit the obligatory social media topic too. Enjoy:

You’ve provided your SEO expertise for quite a while with some very large web sites. What is it that keeps you motivated about search?

There are some jobs where the skill set you need is reasonably finite. There is a knowable amount of information you need to learn and eventually master. But SEO is a moving target and that makes it more interesting. Boredom never sets in because I never feel as though I’ve mastered it.

How did that motivation influence your journey to become the Chief Search Strategist at The Wall Street Journal?

After the Journal contacted me, I was invited down to NYC for a casual “meet and greet.” As my husband dropped me at the airport I remember telling him that it was highly unlikely that I would take a corporate job at someplace like the Wall Street Journal. I pictured buttoned-downed suits and a restrictive 9-5 culture.

So I get there and the first person I meet is Kevin Delaney who used to cover the search industry for the Journal. I was immediately impressed by the breadth of his knowledge of search and his enthusiasm for embracing the Web at the Journal. Within 20 minutes of meeting him, I realized that I really wanted this job. That day I met with five other Journal people and my first impression was confirmed over and over again. These were not stuffy old-school folks looking back, this was a group of some of the smartest people I’ve ever met who were savvy about what was happening online and passionate about moving the Journal forward into it. And they were asking me to help! I’ve been with the Journal almost 2 years now and still to this day it’s the most fascinating and compelling job I’ve ever had.

What new insights about SEO have you learned after working for the WSJ?

Before working at WSJ I had assumed that Google Web search and Google News search would be minor variations on the algorithm.. Bad assumption! Google News uses a very different set of signals than Google Web and I’ve enjoyed the challenge of having a new algorithm to untangle.

Career advice: For people who’ve worked in corporate marketing, PR, web development or advertising that are looking to start a new career in search marketing, what advice would you give?

Many SEOs are evolving with the market and expanding their services into social media. I definitely see the value in expanding your skill set and your potential client base but personally I’ve had great luck going the opposite direction… specialization. I focus strictly on organic SEO with a strong emphasis on the technical. The list of what I don’t do is bigger than what I do… no paid search, no link building, no social media, no commerce sites. I know what I do well and I try to stick to it.

What are the most important skills for an in-house SEO vs a SEO working for an agency?

As an agency SEO you’re often juggling multiple projects that are in different phases and have different goals and frequently different resources. On any given day you could doing keyword research for a on a broad category (like autos), working with a junior web developer to launch a site redesign, deploying a search strategy for a small local gardening center, diving into analytics for a monthly report, or writing protocols to optimize title tags for an online hardware retailer with thousands of products. The upside is that you learn a lot because you get real experience in a little bit of everything. But you also have to be very organized and centered because you get pulled in a lot of directions.

Working in-house I’m still juggling multiple projects and working with different departments but in the end these goals have to ultimately be harmonious….everything has to fit together and support the site as a whole.

You have a lot of experience implementing search engine optimization from a technology perspective. What are some of the most common issues with content management systems and/or publishing systems that get in the way of optimal search visibility?

Common things I see are title tags that can’t be edited after the page is published or title tags that can’t be different from the article headline or title tags on paginated URLs that can’t be customized.

Do you have any headsmacking examples of simple fixes that resulted in large scale benefits?

Invest in a really good chair.

You have the unique perspective of having worked for an agency, for yourself and as an in-house SEO. Do you think companies will be able wean themselves from outsourcing any SEO work? Or do you see SEO as being like other professional services where companies will employ a combination of in-house and specialized or strategic outside expertise?

It’s important to know what you don’t know! When WSJ wanted to publish their international editions online my first recommendation was to bring in a consultant with a solid track record of executing successful SEO strategies in multiple countries. I’ve attended conference sessions on international search and read lots of information on it, but I had never developed, implemented and monitored an international search strategy for a client so my knowledge on the subject was academic.

Outside experts are the best way to learn what you don’t know.

What role does social media and networking play in today’s SEO for publishers?

In terms of SEO, social media offers a much more viable and authentic way to develop links to your site rather than link acquisition campaigns which were generally designed to get links for search engines. Now you can connect with your market, network, create buzz and really increase the exposure of your brand. And a happy by-product of that is links for SEO.
Also, social media provides another distinct source of traffic. A few years ago, you had email, search, referred traffic from editorial or advertising links and direct traffic from offline marketing. It makes me nervous when I see someone rely too much on a single source of traffic. If your business runs on a website and you’re getting 60% of your site traffic from organic search, you need to diversify. One little algorithm shrug and whammo… you could be feeling a lot of pain.

How do you see the influence of search innovations changing how you “do SEO” in the next year? In the next 2-3 years?

I have a hunch that the kind of technical SEO that I do will phase into obsolescence in the next few years. Google and Bing are aggressively expanding their Webmaster toolsets to put much of this information right into the hands of anyone that needs it. I think technical SEO will become a standard part of web development and other forms of SEO will be assimilated into social media, PR and analytics (except for paid search which isn’t going away). Obviously this begs the question, what will I do? I’m still thinking about that!

How is SEO for a large publisher (like Marketwatch or WSJ) different than some of the other large content sites (like Zillow) that you’ve worked on?

The great thing about doing SEO for a publisher is never having to worry about editorial content! Zillow, Avvo and DriverSide all started with a database of useful information. That database of content can be optimized so that it’ll rank for thousands of relevant queries (san diego homes for sale) but if you want to rank for queries like “best elementary schools in san diego” or “safest neighborhoods in san diego” you’ll need editorial content. Lots of it. On a zillion topics. Oh and make it high quality please? Yeh. We got that.

How much of a role do you see structured data and microformats playing in the future of search engine optimization?

I’m a big fan of Edward Tufte who writes about the visual communication of information through display. From a user perspective, I love the addition of structured data and microformats. From an SEO perspective, I firmly believe the more relevant information you can intelligently convey in a search result, the more qualified your visitors will be.

What about sitemaps and feeds? Essential or only necessary in certain situations?

For large sites, feeds and sitemaps are the most efficient method of discovery for new content. Far more efficient than getting crawled. But crawling is also important because you don’t get anchor text factored into a feed.

What tools would you recommend to an in-house marketer that’s newly acquired SEO responsibilities? Any advanced tools for more experienced marketers that you like? SEO or Social?
Most standalone SEO tools are geared towards linking and that’s something I stay away from. If you don’t have a viable PR strategy or a product that people will want to talk about our content that folks want to read and link to, then you’re not my ideal client. I’m not a PR person and to me, that is the essence of link building. So I don’t use too many tools. Xenu has been a workhorse for me over the years and I’m a big believer in having 2 sets of analytics. Besides that, using the engine’s toolsets as well as syntax queries provides the bulk of the data that I need.

My favorite conference is coming up next month. SMX Advanced in Seattle is one of the few SEO conferences I attend where I always learn something to make it worthwhile. PubCon is another one. As for reading… I try not to spread myself to thin during the week because I could easily end up spending all day every day reading blogs. Generally I hit searchengineland.com because if there’s something I need to know, it’s there. On Fridays I try to make the round of blogs and catch up.

Is there a question I should be asking you?

You may not know that although I am “full-time” and “in-house” I’m actually a consultant for WSJ, not an employee. The difference for me (besides longer-than-usual vacations) is that I don’t *do* SEO for them…my goal is embed it as a process into their standard procedures and work-flow systems. I believe that a really good consultant works to make herself unnecessary. It may seem counter-intuitive to remaining employed but I’ve found that this philosophy makes me more valuable to my clients.

Thanks Alex!

Alex Bennert is the in-house SEO at the Wall Street Journal. Specializing in algorithmic search, she’s worked with clients such as Zillow, Philips, SFGate, JibJab and other enterprise level sites with millions of pages. A search geek since 1999, Alex analyzes bot behavior, ponders crawl barriers and conjures friendly URLs while waiting in line at the grocery store.

You can find Alex on Twitter as SEOsylph

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
SEO at Wall Street Journal: Interview with Alex Bennert |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

SEO Google Style: Interview with Maile Ohye

Lee Odden — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:53:04 +0000

Spotlight on Search Interview with Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead at Google

Maile Ohye has become a well known public figure from Google that works with webmasters and web marketers coordinating Google Webmaster Central outreach efforts, including the Webmaster Central Blog. She has been speaking at search conferences for several years and has done many interviews like this video with Greg Jarboe on the topic off real-time search. Her involvement with Google’s Webmaster Central has been instrumental in helping many web site owners find solutions to their Google problems.

In this interview, Maile shares her experience working with Google, Webmaster Central, offers tips on improving page speed, shares unusual SEO problems, offers her perspective on SEO and Social Media as well a hint at her upcoming keynote presentation at SES Toronto.

Please tell us about your career at Google and what’s the most exciting thing about your work?

I’ve worked at Google for over four years. One of my responsibilities is to manage the Webmaster Central Blog. I love the internet, love Search, and it’s all exciting. Monday through Friday I’m able to eat these great lunches (food is another love of mine), collaborate with the coolest people, and work toward a cause I totally believe in: a better web. In my current role, I assist webmasters to implement open standards and best practices that allow search engines to crawl/index their site. Because in the end, better sites make a better web which better facilitates users finding relevant information. Yay!

So dorky, I know. Can’t help it. I really dig this stuff.

Google Webmaster Central has been a great resource for many webmasters. What tips can you share with web site owners to make the most out of Google Webmaster Tools?

Awww, Webmaster Central a “great resource” for many webmasters? That’s wonderful to hear. As for tips, I’d say verify ownership of your site in Webmaster Tools, sign up for email forwarding in Webmaster Tools’ Message Center, and then check out all the specific data for your site: our Top Search Queries feature was just revamped. Crawl Errors is cool for making sure your site is accessed as you’d expect (many people find unknown 404s, or realize they have server downtime because of noticing the “Unreachable” errors), HTML Suggestions shows you the URLs with duplicate titles or meta descriptions. I think once you start poking around in Webmaster Tools you’ll learn more and more. It’s addictive.

How does one become a Bionic Poster?

Lee, Bionic Posters aren’t born, they’re made. They’re the most active, helpful, accurate, friendly webmasters in the discussion forum. Many of them were bionic posters before we ever had recognition for bionic posters — they just went about their day helping others in the webmaster community. It was an honor for me to meet Richard Hearne and dine with webado while I was on holiday in Montreal. They’ve both individually written thousands (thousands!) of posts to help webmasters.

This thread still brings tears to my eyes.

The disclosure about page speed being a ranking factor will certainly have an impact on user experience. What’s the impact for Google?

Speed is now a factor in rankings because we’re trying to best serve users, and studies show that users are happier with faster sites and less satisfied with slow sites. More satisfied users are shown to spend more time on the internet. More time on the internet means more time spent learning new things, becoming a better informed citizen, surfing the web and, of course, checking out your website. Speed can be a win for all parties involved.

Please share a few tips and/or tools for improving page load speed:

First, I’d get a gauge of your site in Webmaster Tools Site Performance. Then, I’d download the Page Speed plugin. Simple implementations to improve performance are compressing/gzip-ping as many file types as possible, using an expires header, and ordering stylesheets the top of the page/scripts at the bottom. More information in my blog post/video from last week, You and site performance, sitting in a tree…”.

In your work with Google Webmaster Central, what are some of the most common mis-conceptions about SEO? Common problems? Really unique or unusual problems?

A more complex problem we’ve discussed recently is what to do with a page that has its (boilerplate) template translated into different language, causing different URLs, but where the actual (non-template) content remains the same. In other words, only the navigation can switch languages, the content itself is unchanged. This configuration is common in user-generated sites. For example, a discussion forum may have it’s template available in 20 languages, however the individual user posts are written in any language and are not translated.

Because the actual/main content is the same, rel=”canonical” makes theoretical sense. So should the webmaster use rel=”canonical” from the different languages to one preferred version? Let’s say the webmaster uses rel=”canonical” on her entire site. She points the French/Spanish/German versions to her canonical English-template version. Now, however, French-speaking users only see the English-template version in search results. Is this a desirable user search experience?

It’s a tough call. At this point, we can’t give a best practice recommendation across the board. It’s a decision left to the individual webmaster as they know their audience best.

If a web site owner was deciding how much effort to focus on standard SEO (keywords in content & links, crawling, external link acquisition) compared to social media (creating profiles, growing a network, sharing content) what tips would you give to help them decide where to spend their time? How do you see SEO and social media working together?

I think having a solid site: great content, good experience for users (intuitive navigation, responsive), descriptive page titles, standardized URL structure, etc., is of primary importance. A strong site is the foundation where you’ll likely make your online conversions. Once this foundation is established, the social media approach helps drive traffic, builds excitement (and inbound links), that you’ll be able to capitalize on with your solid site.

Congratulations on the keynote presentation at SES Toronto. What will you be speaking about?

Thanks! I’m super excited. I expect to talk about Search, Real Time Search, Webmaster Tools, cool new projects on the web. And hopefully I’ll hear feedback/concerns from the web community in Toronto, too.

Thanks so much for the interview, Lee. Hope to talk again soon.

Thank you Maile!

Find Maile at:
Twitter: @maileohye
Blog: SEO category

B2B SEO: Content Sourcing & Optimization

Lee Odden — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:00:15 +0000

B2B marketers have always been in the business of “content marketing“ with white papers, case studies, webinars, demos, free consultations, ebooks and the like. Longer sales cycles due to more complex products and services and business purchasing processes often require more information. The content used to educate buyers of B2B products and services can be a very valuable asset when it comes to content optimization and acquiring leads via organic search.

When assessing B2B client resources for optimization, most marketers focus on web pages and increasingly, digital assets and social media content. Web pages are more often directly linked to by other sites vs images or video, so it makes sense to start optimizing a B2B site’s web pages. The operative word in that last sentence is “start”.

Asking the right questions when sourcing content for search engine and social media optimization can reveal substantial assets that many marketers didn’t even think of using. Here are a few of the most important questions to ask (and get answers to:)

How many web pages are published on the corporate domain name?
How many pages are actually getting indexed and included in SERPs by search engines? (reconcile the difference and fix)
How many and what type of images are being published ON the corporate domain name? How many off site?
How many and what type of videos are being published on the corporate site? How many off site? How many off site?
How many and what type of audio are being published on the corporate site? How many off site?

It’s also important to look at other file types that could be potential entry points for search:

How many blogs published on the corporate domain name? Sub domain? Different domain name? Third party domain?
How many and what topics of PDF files are published on the corporate domain name? How many off site?
How many and what topics of Microsoft Office files are published on the corporate domain name? How many off site?

Identifying topics related to these different types of content and media for optimization will give you a better picture of what you have to work with. It’s helpful to know what types of documents or information is published as you build out your content strategy and optimization plan.

Case studies
White papers
Product or service specifications
Testimonials
Newsletters
Press releases
Product demos
Frequently asked questions, knowledegebase
PowerPoint presentations
eBooks
Rich media apps, games or interactive tools
User generated content, either raw or aggregated according to topic
Blog content, blog comments, other corporate social participation on the web (Ex: Twitter) – again, either raw or aggregated by topic

Of course there are many others for B2B marketers that have made any kind of commitment to content. Once there’s a clearer picture of what content and media assets there are to work with, they can be mapped by keyword topic.

Some content types deserve focused keyword optimization and link building attention. Others really only need the benefit of process driven or template level SEO . By process driven, I mean training content producers within the company on using keyword glossaries to guide their word choices when creating web pages or other types of content. By template level SEO, I mean modifications to the web site templates that are used with the content management system to dynamically populate keywords in title tags, image alt text, breadcrumb navigation and similar locations.

While most B2B Search Engine Optimization efforts are focused on marketing activities that drive leads and sales, working holistically with SEO can deliver benefits that increase value or reduce costs in other areas of the company as well. Optimizing FAQ’s and product support information can provide answers to customers before they call support. Optimizing news related content such as press releases and images can attract journalists to use the company in a story. Optimizing blog content that humanizes the company and gives insight into the culture as well as optimized job listings can make it easier for qualified candidates to find open positions.

I’ll be talking about these topics and more at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum in Boston tomorrow at 1:45-3pm in a session called, Content SEO: Best Practices and What to Avoid. TopRank SEO client, Jiyan Wei from Vocus will present a case study of how they’ve used and advanced their SEO efforts with the 500,000 press releases hosted on PRWeb. There will also be a special handout (small book) provided of the presentation with additional SEO resources available to the first 50 attendees. We hope to see you there!

B2B Search Engine Optimization: Focus on Content SEO

Lee Odden — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:38:25 +0000

MarketingProfs B2B Forum is coming up quickly next week and I will be presenting about an hour of essential search engine optimization tips and insight specifically for B2B web sites along with Vocus Product Manager of PRWeb, Jiyan Wei.

There’s a tremendous opportunity for B2B marketers to leverage SEO to increase prospect acquisition and to facilitate after the sale support and upgrades. Most B2B marketers create a substantial amount of content to guide prospects through sales cycles that are much longer than companies selling consumer products/services.

While much of that content is published online, most of it isn’t optimized for search and digital assets are often ignored as potential traffic drivers via search. In this session, we’ll focus on core SEO to help make a website’s content search engine friendly and talk about best and worst B2B SEO practices for processes to optimize content for better search results. The PRWeb case study will show how they worked to refine their content management system overall so it would be technically search engine friendly. Other topics include: large website issues, duplicate content and what to consider when planning a website redesign.

Specific topics we’ll be discussing include:

B2B Content Optimization Strategy & Core SEO

Optimized Content Strategy
Core SEO (Keywords, Content, Technical & Links)
B2B SEO Best & Worst Practices Examples

Large B2B Website and Publisher SEO

Challenges you may run into if you have a large website
Duplicate content issues
Planning a redesign of your existing website (Migration Plan)

PRWeb as a Case study

PRWeb experience with SEO during site design, CMS updates
Technical SEO tips, sitemaps, site architecture

Focus on B2B SEO Best Practices

Best Practices Content SEO for B2B
Best Practices with Content Management Systems
Best Practices B2B SEO Measurement & Analytics

Then we’ll wind things up with about 1/2 hour of Q and A. If you’re a B2B marketer with a small or enterprise level web site, this is a must attend session and definitely an important conference to attend. We hope you can make it.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
B2B Search Engine Optimization: Focus on Content SEO |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Should You UnGoogle Your Online Marketing?

Lee Odden — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:45:28 +0000

Several years ago (2007) I was asked to give a presentation at Jill Whalen’s High Rankings Seminar in Minneapolis. This was pretty cool because I had been reading Jill’s newsletter for years beforehand. The topic I spoke on was “UnGoogle Your Search Marketing,” where I discussed how to employ blogs, social media and optimized press releases as alternative, yet complimentary sources of web site traffic.

While search is the primary source of web traffic for our sites at TopRank Online Marketing and certainly for our client web sites, I think that now, more than ever, it’s important to “UnGoogle” your search marketing. Before anyone thinks I’m talking about ignoring Google completely, I suggest reading on.

Focusing content creation efforts solely to serve Search Engine Optimization purposes can be limiting. If the the only purpose for creating content is for search engine visibility, the publishing web site may improve search traffic but disappoint when it comes to converting that traffic. SEO alone might not be enough.

Every web designer and copywriter’s nightmare when it comes to SEO is an unattractive, keyword stuffed web page that might do well in search ranking but scares the hello out of anyone who visits. That’s an extreme of course, but my point is that great SEO leverages keyword use and search friendly design recommendations to the benefit of site visitors first or at least as much for people as for SEO. The best content optimization is a great expression of left/right brain thinking.

An alternative to such textbook SEO tactics would be to create connections and distribution channels that have nothing to do with search engines. Create sources of web traffic that are independent of search engines but are executed in a search friendly way.

Fundamentally, that means: Listen to the social web. Learn about customer interests, preferences and needs. Create content to meet those needs. Grow networks in the channels where those customers spend time AND in channels that influence them. Investigate popular and relevant search based keywords as well as social keywords and incorporate them into the content strategy and social networking effort.

Use a combination of real time search and social media monitoring to detect on-demand marketing opportunities and analyze the ebb and flow of keyword focused conversation. As advertising and media placements drive search queries, so do social conversations. While many of those opportunities are fleeting and not practical, some will take hold in the form of a conversation that turns to buzz and search.

In the end, creating content of value and connections with a network that focuses on delivering value to the customers and influencers you’re trying to reach will reap rewards beyond what SEO by itself can achieve. Invest in customer relationships, networks and an optimized content marketing program and you’ll achieve a distinct competitive advantage on the social web at large AND on Google.

[photo credit: Mark Knol]

Key Questions to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy

Lee Odden — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:45:01 +0000

I’ve been thinking about how entering the content marketing space is not for the faint of heart. It can be a signifcant undertaking both in terms of resources and a change in an organization’s approach to marketing and sales. Obviously, content marketing is better for some companies and industries than others. Outside help also makes a difference.

While increasing numbers of companies are realizing they must provide more than product information to satisfy customers, many of those same companies fail by implementing random tactics and missing out on benefits like better search visibility.

In order to take full advantage of the significant gains in search traffic that are available with a content focused marketing effort, it’s essential to answer some key questions:

What do you really know about your customers?

I put customers first before company goals because a social media and content focused marketing effort must emphasize the needs of those you’re trying to reach in order to meet your own. Think of it as, “Give to get”.

Who are you trying to reach? Have you developed Buyer Personas? How well do you understand your customers’ goals? What are your customers preferences when it comes to content discovery, consumption and sharing? What keywords do they associate with your products or services? Who are they influenced by? In what communities do they spend their time on the social web?

What business objectives are you trying to achieve?

What are your goals? What is your social media strategy? What must happen for your customers before you meet your business objectives? What are teh key performance indicators that will help you measure the buyer persona’s path towards conversion? Do you have the measurement tools in place to properly monitor and measure for research and to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts?

What does the competitive SERPs landscape look like?

What does the search engine results page look like for the keyword phrases you’re after? The SERPs page is a big part of the competitive landscape for SEO. What types of web sites appear in first page results? Who is linking to them and not linking to you? What type of Universal results are triggered? (News, Blogs, Real-time, Books, Products, Local) What types of media are included in the SERPs for your target phrases? (Images, Video). Will the new Google design have any impact on the SERPs landscape for your target keyword phrases? What other types of search engines should you focus on besides Google.com, Yahoo.com and Bing.com?

What resources will you need to succeed?

Most companies are not in the publishing business. In order to achieve longevity for an optimized content marketing effort, it’s important to outline the resources available to implement including: content, people, processes.

Content. What content do you currently have available for optimization? What content will you need to create according to your keyword glossary and customer needs? Know what digital assets you have available for publishing online and indentify what new media you may need to create, and who will be creating/promoting it.

People. Who will create that content in your organization? What in-house content development resources do you normally use? What new content resources, including other departments, could you leverage for SEO? What other groups in your organization will you need to coordinate with in order to execute on promotions?

Processes. what is the current content creation and promotion process? Identify how can you make optimization a baked-in part of established content publishing processes. Determin whether manual keyword glossary sharing is applicable or if the content management system can be modified to dynamically pull in keyword options when adding new content.

Can SEO be made part of the corporate identity standards and incorporated into the style guide?

What is the right tactical mix to help you reach your goals?

Based on customer preferences, your goals, the SERPs and resources, what channels will you optimize?

What mix of content creation will be used? Web pages, press releases, white papers, case studies, online newsroom with press releases, articles, video, images, audio, rich media, sharing content on social sharing web sites. How will you get the content creators within and external to your organization trained on content optimization? What oversight and monitoring methods will you use to ensure quality and avoid unfortunate overwrites?

Also, what link building tactics will be emphasized? How can you leverage existing communications and relationships to increase relevant links? Can you tap into existing dealer networks, affiliates, branch office web sites and marketing partners for quality links? Can you get public relations on board with using links that are more likely to be included in placements? Can links be better optimized for SEO within other online documents such as press releases?

How will you measure success and what tools will you use?

Measurement is the most critical piece of an optimized content marketing program. Measurement with social media monitoring tools up front can be essential in defining the social conversations driving content creation, sharing and consumption that are consistent with your marketing goals. Once a program is implemented, analytics will help measure key performance indicators (KPIs), conversions and anything in between.

There’s a lot you can measure so here are a few examples for SEO, Social Media and Online PR.

SEO related measurement often includes search referrals and keywords that drive traffic to the web site, what search engines send traffic and what the visitors do once they visit. Relative measures of rankings and links can be useful as well. Ultimately, conversions are an idea measurement for SEO, whether it’s a white paper download, webinar signup or an actual product/service sale.

Social media measurement often includes engagement metrics such as fans/friends/followers, comments, brand mentions & sentiment, referred traffic and links. Tracking buzzing topics on the social web can create opportunities for real time content creation/optimization and promotion.

Online PR measurement often depends on determining the effectiveness of press releases distributed via email directly to a short list of journalists or to a newswire service for broader exposure online. Blog and publication mentions (unsolicited) as well as links and sentiment are also important.

Do no underestimate the value and importance of using social monitoring and web analytics to help inform the ongoing content marketing opportunities and the creation of specific types of content in order to attract trending search traffic. Social conversations fuel search traffic. Understand the keywords most often used in social conversations and you may get a leg up on your competition by creating, optimizing and promoting content that’s being discussed and popular.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Key Questions to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

Internet Marketing | Seo Affiliate Internet Marketing » SEO

SEO Pressor Product Review

Product Review #1 (450 Words)

Related articles

Tab Phishing

Best Practices In SEO And Marketing: IMS MN 2010

Enterprise SEO Interview with Scott Skurnick of Edmunds.com

7 Essential SEO Tips for Small Businesses

1. Turn everything into content

2. Make it personal

3. Optimize for local search

4. Improve your site’s speed

5. Refine internal linking

6. Create content for people

7. Don’t fret about getting nofollow links

10 Easy Local SEO & Online Marketing Tips

10 Easy Local SEO & Online Marketing Tips

SEO at Turner Broadcasting: Interview with Dan Perry

Beyond Google: SEO and the Social Web

SEO at Wall Street Journal: Interview with Alex Bennert

SEO Google Style: Interview with Maile Ohye

B2B SEO: Content Sourcing & Optimization

B2B Search Engine Optimization: Focus on Content SEO

Should You UnGoogle Your Online Marketing?

Key Questions to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy

What do you really know about your customers?

What business objectives are you trying to achieve?

What does the competitive SERPs landscape look like?

What resources will you need to succeed?

What is the right tactical mix to help you reach your goals?

How will you measure success and what tools will you use?