Tag Archives: search engine marketing

3 Skills You Need To Be An SEO

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Being an SEO’s not the easiest job in the world. It’s certainly not as simple as understanding, “I need links, and optimized anchor text, keywords and META tags.” How can you develop those links? Why are links important? How does Google actually work? Why does your ranking change in the SERPs? To answer these questions and more, you need more than just knowing the ‘rules of the game.’ There are three very important skills you need to be an SEO, and without these skills, you are at a real disadvantage in the long-run. 1. Communication And Eloquence You have to be able to effective communicate strong thoughts and messages. Your communication skills will allow you to be a good copywriter, which means you can easily generate content that is link-worthy. Even if you have a great idea for a blog post or an incredibly powerful message to send, you have nothing unless you can properly communicate your ideas in a way that’ll evoke an emotional response from other webmasters. Hopefully the response is links to you! Advanced communication skills also come in handy when you are pitching yourself to other webmasters, bloggers and journalists for links back to your website. 2. Critical Thinking You need to be able to understand the logic behind Google’s algorithm, website architecture and the interconnectedness of the web to be a true SEO. You might know the basic rules for SEO, but you can’t be advanced in SEO for a very long time by only knowing ‘the rules’ as they are set today. This year, Google will change their algorithm about 550 times . That’s more than 1.5 times each day! Mastery of SEO means understanding why Google ranks the way it does, and how Spiders crawl websites and properly index and rank pages. By critically thinking about the How? and Why? you will learn to build your strategy for long-term SEO potential, rather than building your SEO power according to short-lived rules that Google may deem ‘adds little weight’ to a website’s authority. 3. Patience You also need to understand that your rankings in the SERPS will not always change overnight. A few factors involved in your ranking include i) aggregate traffic and ii) search traffic relative to your search ranking. Aggregate Traffic You can certainly have a spike in traffic one day or one week, but that doesn’t mean there will be a consistent demand or growing trend to find you in the SERPs. While your ranking may somehow fluctuate to the front page for a relevant search term (when you were formerly on a deeper page, perhaps the 3rd or 4th) this is may only be temporary. Unless there is a consistency or growth in the traffic to your site following a traffic spike, you are not likely to maintain those rankings because the SERPs are time sensitive. They mean to show results that people are looking for when they are looking for it, but if the trend of searching for you and your content dies, so will your ranking. Staying on the front page will mean maintaining the traffic you had during your spike or continually growing your traffic. Search Traffic Relative To Your Search Ranking When you’re ranked in the SERPs, there is an expectation that you will get X% of the clicks from the number of searches for that term that week or month. For example, let’s say (arbitrary numbers) you are ranked 3rd for the search term “Las Vegas SEO.” For the 3rd position in the SERPs, you are expected to receive 12% of the clicks for that search term every month. But if somehow, people are searching “Las Vegas SEO” and click on you a disproportionate amount, or neglect to click on you, your ranking will change. So if you received 20% of clicks for that month, Google may place you in the 2nd position to see how well you perform there – if will you receive the amount of clicks consistent with the proportion of clicks a 2nd position ranking should receive. If you received 4% of clicks for that term that month, your ranking will drop and you will be ‘tested’ in that new, lower position to see if you are the right ‘fit’ for the 5th position in the SERPs. Danny Wong is an in-house SEO expert for Blank Label, an ecommerce startup focused on custom men’s dress shirts designed by consumers with their dress shirt design application . Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . 3 Skills You Need To Be An

Your Online Retirement

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“Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain… Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight!” Robert Browning “Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came” I’m sure you’ve all heard it before.  Work hard your entire life while putting aside a portion of your earnings to fund your post-career retirement (supplemented by Social Security / Medicare or their non-US equivalents).  Part of that advice is still good, since our laws are written in such a way as to make it foolhardy not to participate in these government programs.  Plus saving as much money as possible is always a good strategy as a hedge against an uncertain future (and your heirs will love you for it). But retirement from online efforts when they are successful?  Yeah, right.  Cut back on the time spent online?  Perhaps.  However, instead of retiring from online, may I suggest instead…Online Retirement. In our online careers, many of us have played different roles and worked different projects.  Over time, we’ve gravitated towards things that are both enjoyable and lucrative to us.  We’ve sold our expertise by the hour as consultants or salaried employees but if we’re smart, we’ve also invested our time in developing our own online revenue streams (e.g. Affiliate Marketing) or acquired / developed assets (e.g. domain names, fully developed websites) that will appreciate in value over time as we get closer to the Government’s definition of “retirement age”. Our online abilities that we’ve established and the online assets that we own / developed have become major components of our online identity which is how we’re known by others.  We take that identity into every interaction & encounter we have with someone since our persona is immediately discoverable with a simple Google Search.  An active online identity is the catalyst for building and developing valuable and meaningful relationships with others which can be leveraged for any and all present and future initiatives we might want to take. Let’s also not forget how the distinctions between work and non-work online have been permanently blurred.  Sure, we need to spend enough time online doing “productive” pursuits in order to support ourselves, but that should still leave plenty of time to have a little fun too.  Social media is a wonderful catalyst for that.  Connect business relationships with social media and the relationships can become personal.  Connect personal relationships with social media and the relationships can become business.  Strangers become friends.  Strangers become clients.  Friends become clients.  Clients become friends.  We’re all accessible 24/7…work time and leisure time folding together as we live our lives online. And we’re supposed to retire from this life? Most everyone reading this blog post is profoundly blessed that they are earning their living via a medium that is not only ubiquitously accessible and continually enjoyable but transcends any cultural, social, generational & class boundaries.  The concept of retirement is totally inapplicable to our collective lifestyles.  Over time, our online lives will and at some point, some of us might not favor the direction of the online evolution and quit surfing along the cutting edge.  However, even when those particular folks get off the bus, there will remain pleasurable and lucrative inhabitable niches for them where they can park themselves and prosper. Remember, there is an online component to every offline activity…so whatever activities take up your time in your golden years, there is an online community that will welcome your participation and leadership. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Your Online

Penalties, Bans, and Paid Search

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There are numerous posts on PPC vs SEO , who gets more money, and all that mumbo jumbo. To me, it’s right up there with “SEO is dead” type posts, good for attention, but there should not be any versus in that relationship. (Note: Most of the more recent posts point out that both are beneficial) The two have more in common than both sides would care to admit sometimes. One thing that they do have in common is the infamous and often feared Google ban/penalty. Yes, if you haven’t heard yet, you can get penalties and banned from AdWords. The new Quality Score system has penalties built in that reflect in your quality score for a keyword. The lower your quality score, the more potential there is for higher costs and lower placements. That is the equivalent of a sudden drop in rankings. When it comes to bans, it is actually harder to return from a ban in AdWords than being de-indexed on the organic side. This could change but for now if your account is banned, you cannot just make a new one, and there is no form to ask for re-inclusion after the issues are fixed. There are ways around this of course , but just like making a new website, on a new domain, on a new host using new information and all, it takes time to get the historical wonderfulness that might have existed before. There has been nothing “official” on the AdWords Blog that I can see, but a WebmasterWorld thread did feature a response from AdWords Advisor – a long time Google AdWords employee and generally helpful person to the forum members at WebmasterWorld. The AdWords team acknowledged that bans were being put in place for those advertisers that were seemingly deceiving the end user. How to Not Get Banned in

How to Work with & Shop for a SEO Services Firm

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If you are a small business owner or an in house marketer looking to hire an outside SEO firm to outsource all your search engine marketing efforts, this article might be right for you. If you have never really ventured out to find the right SEO company to partner with you might be in for a very bumpy ride or you can be prepared before you get out there so you don’t waste your time partnering with the wrong type of person or company. If unprepared you could find yourself wasting a great deal of time with the wrong firm. Educate yourself prior to your hunt and you could find a partnership that meshes better than spaghetti and meatballs. When interviewing SEO companies probe as much as you can in order to find the right one that fits you and your team best. Asking lots of questions is ok. If the company is eager to help you they will be more than happy to help you out. Remember they don’t want to partner with the wrong type of business either so they shouldn’t mind a great deal of question asking. Here are some key points you should think about when you are looking to hire a firm and also when you have finally picked one to work with: Do they outsource work overseas? You are going to want to know if the company you just hired outsources any work overseas to be completed. It is important to realize that this could impact your results in a negative manner so it is crucial you find out ahead of time. A usual tipoff is the price is outrageously low. Ideal client size? You will want to know what the company’s ideal client size is so you know if you fit into the parameters of their business culture. If they typically only work with larger companies and you are only by yourself or with a few employees you might not be the right fit for that agency. This could make things a bit strange down the road. Understand the service: This is very important; you need to fully understand search engine optimization and marketing before you decide to outsource the activities. Failure to fully understand how the medium works will results in you making irrational decisions from lack of understanding how to effectively analyze positive results from the work being completed. Take the time to understand what goes into this area of marketing before you try to hire a company. It can often times be difficult to actually gauge the work being done so a better understanding of where your money is being spent will allow your relationship with your company of choice to flourish that much better and smoother. Don’t fire them when they are getting you “good results”: You need to familiarize yourself with the service so you don’t fire a client for the wrong reason. If you hire a firm to help you increase traffic and they provide you with visitor reports showing an increase of traffic by 300% in less than 6 months don’t fire them. If your website is not converting and your traffic has significantly increased it could very well be your website layout or even your product. The job of an SEO firm is to help you deliver targeted visitors from the search engines. If you have not hired them for website conversion recommendations don’t chop their head off because your website is not converting. Hire only one SEO company at a time: This should just be a given but never hire more than one SEO company at a time. This will be disastrous to your business and also your online presence. If you hire and SEO company and a separate copywriter and they communicate to each other that will work as long as the communication is effort is there. But never hire two separate firms to help you with your link building because that will most likely blow up and lead to nothing good. Hiring two firms at the same time could also get your website penalized by the search engines from having too much activity happening in a short period of time. Treat them like a team member: Your SEO company is not your enemy, they are your friend. Treat them as a team member because from day one it is in their best interest to really provide you with the work they promise. If you do your due diligence prior to hiring you shouldn’t have a problem finding a firm that will follow through with their promises. These are all very important areas to really focus on and execute. The right SEO partner could be by your side for years to come so make sure you take your time to find the right one. Remember that you get what you pay for so don’t just shop on price or you could find yourself going nowhere fast! Nick Stamoulis is the Founder of the Boston SEO Firm , Brick Marketing.  Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . How to Work with & Shop for a SEO Services

SEO Priorities – Task ROI

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I was going to sit down and write a post with my usual brand of geekiness. You know, some more eye-watering patent or IR paper analysis that the search world uses to get to sleep at night?  Then I thought of something worth getting off my chest that seems not to get enough attention out there…Since this is a ‘ Search Biz ’ article, right? You see, I recently co-hosted a chat session (in zee Dojo ) with the lovely Dana Lookadoo on ‘ the Business of SEO ’ which the gang seemed to be quite keen on. It is interesting that we don’t talk more about it. As we were musing (about a wide variety of topics from proposals to contracts), I touched on what I lovingly term; Task ROI . And it seems to often be an alien concept…or at least one not openly discussed. So, if you will spare a few moments, allow me to share…   What is Task