Written by: Jayson DeMers

Written by Simon Penson

Written by Alex Moss

WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems available today. 

In September 2012, it was reported that WordPress powers 1 in 6 websites.

As someone who codes within WordPress on a daily basis, it's easy for me to sell WordPress to clients. They are assured that the CMS platform is future proof - at least for the foreseeable future.

However, downloading and installing WordPress isn't enough to make the site successful for SEO, security, and performance. But the following basic tips will improve your WordPress site for SEO and the user experience.

Although most of you reading this post already have a live WordPress site, this post will begin at the point just after a self-hosted five-minute install.

Remove Some WordPress Defaults

The top item to remove from WordPress sites: the "Hello World" post and "Sample Page". If the site is still in development, then these elements are OK to have for testing layout and typography. Once the site is live to the public, however, make sure you remove them - you could even delete them from the trash to keep your database a little less cluttered.

Tip: You should rely on better content than the default post and page. If you want to have better sample content you can download theWP Example Content plugin by Josh Ferrara and Jonathan Simmons.

In addition, remember to remove (or change) the default "Uncategorized" category. If you want to keep it, at least create a new category that you know will become the most popular category for you and set it as default. You can do this within the admin area by navigating to Posts -> Categories.

Why this is good for SEO: The sample page and post "Hello World" is less problematic for SEO, but more important to remove for user experience. However, the default category should be a top focus for SEO. Your post is generally not uncategorized, so ensure that you create relevant categories for all your posts.

Set Your Permalinks

The default setting for Permalinks isn't an efficient URL structure for SEO. Changing the setting to Post Name (/%postname%/) is usually best practice. Some like to use /%category%/%postname%/ as their setting but can cause a few issues when content for categories aren't optimized (more on that later).

Why this is good for SEO: WordPress' default setting sets all pages to run via URL parameters, whichGoogle advises against.

Add Some Update Services

When new pages and posts are created it may take some time for that new URL to be indexed by search engines (depending on the site's crawl rate). To speed this up, WordPress offer the chance for you to add update services within the General Settings page. Ensure these four are in the list:

• http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

• http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

• http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

• http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/pingSubmit?bloglink=http%3A%2F%2www.domain.com/

Why this is good for SEO: Having your site indexed is fundamentally the most important thing for you. If a URL isn't indexed it will never be shown in any SERP. Not indexing quickly or often enough means your site could miss some big organic search opportunities, especially if your site relies on current affairs or breaking news.

WordPress Homepage: Blog Posts or a Static Page?

Originally, WordPress was a blogging platform. Although still essentially true, now it's more of a content management system (CMS).

Because its conception was for bloggers, the default setting sets the homepage to output your latest posts. If you want to change this to a static page:

• Create a blank page for your latest blog posts.

• Go to Settings -> Reading settings.

• Choose whether you want latest posts or a static page for Front Page Displays.

• For each article in a feed, show the excerpt.

• Ensure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked.

Note: some themes actually use a different method by letting you choose a page template to output blog posts rather than use the default settings. I'm not a fan of this but is something you should be aware of.

Why this is good for SEO: Solving the issues above will help with potential duplicate content and indexation issues.

Why this is good for SEO: Thumbnails are useful to display an image smaller than full size, which helps bandwidth and performance. As an example you may want to upload an image that is 2,000 x 2,000 px - this size will only be needed for people who want to download the full size version. Here it would be better to set a large size to say 940 px to ensure that it fits on most screens - then simply call that image in the source rather than the larger version. Note that this is different than adding the full size image and then resizing to 70 percent in image settings (as the original 2,000 px image is still called and loaded).

Summary

By tweaking some default settings, setting permalinks, adding update services, and customizing media settings - plus installing Google Analytics - you will greatly improve your WordPress site for SEO and the user experience.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO Services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by Victoria Edwards

What is the Standard for Content?

The content you create must "work" toward your overall SEO strategy. With this in mind, your content must be that which serves an informational, resourceful and captivating intent for which it meets Google Quality Guidelines but also would gain the sharing of it by your users socially and hopefully the attainment of backlinks from other sites.

What Types of Content Do You Need?

This is one of main questions I receive from clients all the time. They understand the importance of good content but do not know what type of content to create.

Every site and every vertical is different so I wouldn't tell someone selling nursing home services that they need a cool infographic. Yes, there may be some shockingly interesting facts on nursing home neglect or need-to-knows, but does the content type match the demographic and the marketplace? Probably not.

Still, we know that we need content simply because more content can mean more organic exposure. Small sites today primarily only do well if they have a strong brand, amazing link profile, or a great social media program, which usually these three pieces rarely happen independent of one another.

For the rest of us, we need to find a way to expand our content base on-site.

Looking to Those Who are Where you Want to Be

This is why we perform competitive analysis in SEO programs isn't it? We know where we want to rank so we look at those keyword areas to assess successful rankings and how they may have rose to the top. What better place to look for content ideas than at your competitors?

Now before you send the content recon team into the competitor sites, we have to know what we're looking for. You simply don't want to walk-through the competitor site and say, they have a blog, they have an FAQ section or they have an article database. We aren't solely looking for content gaps between our sites, but gaps for content that works.

After assessing where we need to rank and who is out there ranking well, we take it to the tools.

• The first stop is SEM rush where we're going to individually look at the competitor URLs. We aren't simply looking for the amount of keywords they rank for or the amount of overall search traffic they receive each month. We will look at individual rankings for keyword terms with decent search volume. Looking further, what are the URLs that are ranking aside from the homepage and other top level pages? What types of "supporting content" continues to show up for worthwhile search queries.

  
  

• The second stop is Open Site Explorer where I am not looking simply at the amount of total links or unique linking root domains a competitor has, but what the top link destination pages are. Beyond the homepage, main product/service offering pages, what are the "supporting content" pages which have a high amount of links linking back to them? These pages show us the types of content that either have fared well with users to gain links or is a viable type of content for you to go out and build links.

• The third stop is Mutual Mind where we will listen to the social landscape to assess our competitors. As with the above steps, we aren't looking at broad top-level numbers, in this case, overall likes, shares retweets, etc. We're looking for social outlets that work well. Also, at a granular level, what are the types of content that their audience (should become yours too) accepts the best? What content causes others to become your content evangelists spreading it further - and also past the eyes of the search engines.

Conclusion

Hopefully the above process indicates to you that competitive content gap analysis is more than a one-off review of a competitor site for ideas on content generation. It is about generating the types of content that fulfills your intended user's needs but also satisfies the metrics that search engines are looking for.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO Services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

If you want to include a phone number in your AdWords ad, you'll need to use the call extensions feature. Starting in April, Google will begin disapproving any ads that include telephone numbers in the ad text, according to a recent policy update.

The official word from Google:

"In the next few weeks, we will no longer allow phone numbers to be used in the ad text of new ads. Advertisers who would still like to promote phone numbers in their AdWords advertising can use the call extensions feature. We're posting this alert now to provide adequate lead time to make ad changes.

In April 2013, we will begin to disapprove ads that were using phone numbers in their ad text before the March 2013 policy change."

Advertisers will continue to be charged for a standard ad click every time a mobile user clicks on the forwarding phone number link or "Call" button (this is not a new charge), both of which can be seen in this screenshot:

One cost Google is eliminating with AdWords enhanced campaigns upgraded call extensions is the $1 charge for using a Google forwarding number on ads that appear on desktop searches, such as this one.

Using call extensions with a Google forwarding number allows you to measure conversions. You can find details such as phone impressions, phone calls,phone-through rate and average cost per phone call in the Campaign and Ad Group tabs.

According to Google, "your ad group will have to receive a minimum number of clicks to be able to show call extensions, and a minimum number of calls to show a Google forwarding number."

A rule of thumb: if your content isn't of a higher quality than the places you'd like to acquire a link, then don't try. You may just burn a bridge you could use later.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO Services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Dave Davies

Many of the benefits of blogging are specific to industries. This article will cover two broad areas and rely on you, the educated reader, to understand how these areas apply to you or you can ask questions in the comments below.

The areas we're going to focus on are:

1. The benefits of blogging for visitors

2. The benefits of blogging for links

At the end of this article I'm going to include a "quick tips" section. Let's be honest - it isn't always easy to make the time or get the motivation to blog as regularly as you should and not everyone has the budget to get their staff doing it. I'll be providing a few quick tips on how to get motivated and how to dream up topics when you've written about the same subject hundreds of times.

Blogging for Visitors

When blogs first hit the web in a real way they were a central mechanism for informing and communicating with one's website visitors and customers. Businesses would blog their specials, new product updates, industry news, holidays and pretty much everything that had to do with their business.

For businesses that have moved their core communications off of blogs and onto social media, you're missing huge opportunities.

When we're considering visitors the first thing we need to do is separate the purpose and expectations a user will have when visiting a blog. Because of social media, a blog is a place one goes for in-depth information and not to see the daily special. Understanding the expecting change a visitor will have forces us down a path beneficial for both users and our analytics.

Current Visitors

When you're blogging for your current visitors (i.e., visitors that entered outside your blog or who know you already and simply use your blog as an information source) the key is no longer to post daily updates on daily deals or the such, that's the stuff of social media.

For this group, your blog is your opportunity to reinforce that you know what you're talking about and can be trusted. You can go outside your core niche but stay in related fields.

For example, if you run a food tour company, blogging about great restaurant openings with reviews or even some outstanding recipes would be wins. Keeping visitors updated on weather changes is the stuff of social media or a weather widget embedded on your site.

Your blog is where you build authority. You'll convert elsewhere on your site; your blog is where you reinforce the credibility that will turn into conversion.

New Visitors

Personally, one of my biggest focuses when thinking up blog topics is how it can be used to acquire new visitors. Because a blog post is on your domain, it can be used to drive traffic to more conversion oriented pages and best of all, if done right, you'll have established trust before they move on.

Let's take as our example the same food tour site noted above. Now let's say I'm a traveler visiting a city for the first time and decide to look up "best fine dining in New City" and find a blog review on a new fine dining restaurant.

Regardless of whether the review was positive or negative, you've got a visitor to your site who you know has money, you know likes good food, and who now appreciates your opinion. If the review isn't positive you may want to make a couple of recommendations to fine dining restaurants in the city people would enjoy.

This also applies to any product, service, analysis, etc. you may post about. The win here is that you have a visitor in your target demographic and interest set and they are relying on your opinion.

Essentially, blogs, done right, can be excellent sources of search traffic (and traffic from other sources of course) and if you've posted on topic, that traffic will be targeted properly.

You'll likely find that your blog traffic converts at a lower rate than the traffic for phrases more targeted to their needs (for example "food tours new city") and blogging is time consuming so you may be asking, "Why would I do that?" Apart from this additional traffic there is one key SEO benefit...

Blogging for Links

Blogging gives you the opportunity to create pages related to your business but based more on timely information passing rather than the sales cycle. While your corporate website should be geared towards getting visitors into the conversion funnel, on your blog you have more latitude to create copy that is information-based.

Essentially, this is where you can generate internal link points based on providing real information of interest. While the ideal link appears when someone searches for information and finds your blog (see above) or finds the post via social media or other means and decides it's great information and posts a link to it on their website as a resource (perhaps in their own blog), most links, especially early on, will be generated manually.

To this end I pose the question: which link is more likely to be appreciated on a third party website: a link to your homepage or a link to a post that discussed a related topic?

Let's take the simplest example and that's a discussion forum or blog (I'll leave the debate of the merits of these links to others however it serves as a good example as they exist in virtually every niche). If I'm visiting a forum, answers site or blog and there's a thread discussing great food innew city, it's going to be easier and more effective to leave a comment, noting that you're a local and visit many restaurants and wrote a series of reviews of some of the more popular locations, with a link to your blog reviews category than to simply link to your homepage with a little comment, "I like restaurant x. Had a great steak there."

On a more advanced level, if you find an industry authority site that has some great content, you can follow the authors, wait until one writes an article of interest and where you have additional information or a differing opinion, write a solid piece on the topic and either include it in the comments of the article or send it directly to the author via social media simply noting you thought their piece was great but there were some points missing.

You may not directly get a link in a one-of scenario (or you may - it happens) but done repeatedly (but not so much that you're annoying or writing to a low quality) you will develop your reputation with key industry editors and/or writers as a resource and it will pay off in the end with a link and a boost to your reputation.

Another easy way to generate links to your blog posts in a way that isn't spam is via systems like Zemanta and other content distribution systems. As a note, I don't support systems where you pay on a per-link basis, but at least in the case of Zemanta you're purchasing impressions of your content to get it in front of bloggers as they write based on the keywords they use. Whether they link to you is up to them and whether your content is a good match.

Blogging Tips

How can you keep dreaming up topics? All of us at some point may run out of steam.

Here are a few techniques you can use to keep your blog fresh, even after years of writing:

• Write about news events: It's your job as a business owner to keep up to date with what's going on in your industry. You might as well take what you have to do and use it as an opportunity to be a resource for such information and provide your take on events.

• Write about product or service launches, changes in your industry and related areas: For example, while an update to Chrome may not directly impact SEO, it's related by its developing company and impact on website users so it makes our list of applicable blog subjects.

• Watch Google Trends And Twitter: Watch what industry leaders are talking about or that have a large volume of interest and write to that (understanding that if it's a timely topic like the Super Bowl your content won't rank or likely ever be seen before the interest drops). In the case of volume, you'll the writing to attract visitors and in the case of authorities chatting, you'll likely be writing primarily for links so it will have to be more authoritative.

  
  

Conclusion

Blogging is hard. You need to set a schedule and stick to it as best you can.

Try to start out at a volume you can maintain. Better to commit to a weekly post and throw in an extra one if a hot topic arises than to start with a daily blog post and find you don't have the time and just do them sporadically when you can.

You also want to balance your posts and divide them into logical categories so people can find what they're looking for. If you've written a number of restaurant reviews over the years, don't make your readers sift through dozens or hundreds of posts on ranging topics to find them. Create a category where all this information is located for users and for link points.

Now go, either revive your blog or start one and stick to your schedule. Use it for your visitors and for link points; just remember, if you aren't adding value to someone's site with the content on your page, then it's not good enough.

A rule of thumb: if your content isn't of a higher quality than the places you'd like to acquire a link, then don't try. You may just burn a bridge you could use later.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

1. Written by: Christina Zila

SEO professionals who look at press releases as a way to garner links are missing the point.

The strategy of spamming wire services with sales pitches or informative articles under a press release header has been recognized, and Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts has said in not to expect much power from these types of links just because they are a press release.

The true power of a press release is to attract media attention, leading to a reporter re-working the release into a full-fledged article. Those are the powerful, authoritative links that build rank and authority.

To get a journalist's attention, press releases need to get a journalist's interest and engage that journalist enough to publish it.

Using the proper form for a press release is important, but including the right content with the right spin is even more critical to getting the juicy links that press coverage - not syndicated press releases - can provide.

Here are a few tips from journalists on giving your content the right spin:

1. Avoid Jargon

"Don't reel off esoteric software programs that mean nothing to the average reader. Say in generic terms why the company is hot," says Scott Wyland, Investigative reporter, Scripps Newspapers.

Your average newspaper reader doesn't know SEO from SOS or PageRank from page views. Explain the concept instead of using a term that could be confusing.

Releases specifically for industry publications should use the industry terms but avoid proprietary or company-only slang.

2. No Hard Sell

The old saying "People love to buy but hate to be sold" is valid for press releases. Releases written as a sales pitch with a strong call to action will often go directly to the circular file.

Journalists and publications walk a fine line of ethical reporting, and reputable journalists have a duty to go beyond the sales pitch. Including heavy sales language makes it harder for a reporter to strip away the promotions and get to the core - if there is a core at all.

3. Don't Believe the Hype

Journalists are trained to be critical. They have a well-developed nose for baloney.

Superlatives and just high praise will trip the crap-o-meter and lead to tossed releases. Keep your releases factual and to the point.

"Journalists read news releases to find out what's being promoted and whether it's worth a story. They don't read them to be entertained," said Wyland. Hyperbole has to be edited out, causing more work for the journalist.

4. Press Release Styles

There are two approaches to press release writing. The traditional, "reverse triangle" press release gives a summary of the facts and makes the reporter craft the story. This press release premier gives a good background on the details of a release.

There's another school of thought that drafts the release as the final news story itself, saving the journalist the work of setting the scene.

"Start with a description or anecdote at the top, and get to the point quickly," advised Wyland. "People who don't have a professional story-telling background could create a muddled mess if they try to get too fancy."

Most outlets still expect the traditional release, and journalistic ethics prompt reporters to research the release anyways. If you've built relationships with reporters who are open to this type of release, then a more modern and feature-style release could help propel you to the next level.

5. Know Your Audience

Finally, your release should target a specific audience. While you want to keep your end consumer in mind, your target audience is the journalist reading the press release. Your release should appeal to the journalist's interests, topics and views.

For example, the tech industry in downtown Las Vegas is growing. The Las Vegas Sun has a reporter assigned specifically to the downtown area to report on its growth and changes. Joe Downtown will never report on a tech company that's growing in the suburbs of Las Vegas, even though the common strains of growth and tech are present. Pitches that are off the mark are one of journalists' top annoyances.

Summary

To get journalists to cover your story, give them a factual yet engaging summary of your announcement. Avoid technical jargon, hype, and a sales call to action. Tailor your release to journalists that cover your topic, and write to their needs.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Ken McGaffin

Written by: Mark Jackson

As I'm writing this, the area that I live in (Kansas City) is getting nailed by a tremendous snow storm.

On a break, I caught up on local news and was hearing about some local tow truck companies volunteering their time to help people who are stranded on the roads. They're pulling them out of ditches and helping them get on their way home.

It reminds me, somewhat, of the SEO Industry. I think it goes without saying that - for many - our reputation isn't the best. A few bad apples spoil it for the rest of us. The same could be said for the towing industry.

There were no courses to learn SEO, when I was first introduced to the practice. I learned through being inquisitive. I asked "why" and researched until I determined what it might take to be successful. But, more than anything else, I leaned on a lot of people and asked them the same question: "why?"

I was also helped by forums such as WebmasterWorld, in addition attended SES Conferences, got involved with the networked.

What I found was that the SEO community was very willing to share their knowledge and experiences. I could provide a very large list of people here to say "thanks" to them.

The people who speak at these conferences, and contribute to the forums, are (in most cases) giving their time to the cause. Do they do this with the hopes of growing their presence/gaining business? Yes. Is that the only reason? No. They are just willing to help out. We really do have a lot of very nice people in our industry.

There are some SEOs out there who claim to "know it all". I, for one, will tell you that I don't have it all figured, still. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on things, but - let's be honest - there's a lot of stuff to try and keep your head wrapped around. And, much like Google gets better because it has access to a lot of information, SEOs get better when we have access to a lot of information, too!

One of my all-time favorites in our industry is Ted Ulle. I am compelled to share with you a post that Ted had written on WebmasterWorld, in which he speaks of the importance of humility in SEO:

Let's face [it], there is only one person in the world with the "highest IQ". For the rest of us, we are not the smartest person around. For most of us, the average search engineer at Google IS smarter than we are. Fact - it's a job I can't do. I don't think I could even get through the first interview.

So we need to stay realistically humble when we analyze what Google is doing or even trying to do. Otherwise we're going to make TERRIBLE SEO DECISIONS, based on our own blind spots rather than the real situation. Or even worse, we'll spend all kinds of energy assuming we can't do anything about our situation. Then we just whine and wring our hands, but we don't start winning again.

The biggest error I've seen is assuming we can read the hidden intentions of any other individual, and especially those of a corporation. This is dangerous territory. It's where we have a strong tendency to project our own hidden character onto another, rather than seeing the situation clearly. And with so many people inside a corporation affecting the group's action, it gets even worse...

For me, doing good SEO work means accepting and knowing that these two shortfalls are mine: I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar, and I can make big mistakes trying to read the motives of others.

By admitting that others are smarter than I am, I am challenged to continue to learn new things. So I study patents from Google, Bing and other Information Retrieval scientists. They are doing the hard work that's on the edge of human cultural change - and I want to know at least something about it at that purist level.

So I do try not to project my own shortcomings onto that corporation. Corporations in any field are a human challenge whenever they hit a certain scale. New effects appear that can look like "evil". Google is doing better than most at keeping that cr@p under control, but still they do create some effects that can feel harsh on a personal level.

It's easy, in a frustrating situation, to lose track of the fact that Google doesn't focus on me - that they're focus is on THEIR user base, just as my focus should be on mine. Emotion will not resolve an SEO problem - that's a fact!

And for me, this approach has worked so far. I have a career that feels like a blessing most of the time. And I can stay relatively balanced at work and still "have a life", too.

We are all in a competitive-cooperative ecology with Google. It's not just a competitive or cooperative situation - it's both, all the time. That much understanding, just on its own, has enough to humble me and keep me from becoming either a fanboy or a whining critic. It keeps me in a place where I can be productive.

I hope that sharing my thoughts on these issues can also help you.

SEO professionals who only have a handful of projects have a difficult time saying "this is the way it is", when - in reality - they don't have enough breadth of experience to say, with any level of certainty, that they "know" something is a certain way. However, when you're able to reach out to a network of trusted piers within your industry, it helps you to substantiate your thoughts - or not.

And, the SEO community is, by and large, willing to help out.

That's what I sincerely love and appreciate about our industry. I feel like we each owe it to one another to continue the spirit of knowledge-sharing.

There have certainly been times, when a prospect reaches out to me (that I know for certain cannot afford our services or - perhaps - shouldn't even be entertaining SEO at the moment) that I take a deep breath and remember that we must help one another. It's the Golden Rule that my momma taught me well. You must do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So, I typically end up spending 30-60 minutes on a call with them to help them understand what SEO is, how it's done, and give them a plan for what they should be doing (which, in most cases, does not involve hiring my agency).

Another lesson that I've learned in life is that "the more that you give, the more that you get". I have written before about how I feel that Rand Fishkin established himself, largely, because he figured out that knowledge sharing grew his market prominence and established him as a "thought-leader". This same formula works today. If you have a client that is willing to share their knowledge via a blog, or guest writing somewhere, that certainly helps their SEO.

I should mention that those towing companies that I mentioned earlier are being tweeted about (photos, etc.) on the local news social profiles here in Kansas City. They gave....and then they received.

Here in KC, We have had some tremendous speakers, including - most recently - Brett Tabke (PubCon/WebmasterWorld founder). While Tabke may have agreed to speak to the organization to promote upcoming PubCon event, I don't think that what his chief reason.

Tabke "gets it". He is willing to share his knowledge. He "gives" and therefore he "receives" (no doubt that some of the people who listened to him were intrigued enough to consider attending future events).

The SEO industry has come a long ways in the past 10 years. I hope that our industry can always keep in mind that, while there may be competition, we all work within a unique industry that is stronger because there is a common bond. We do need each other. We need to continue to share our experiences and be willing to help.

The next time someone asks you a "stupid" SEO question, take a breath, remember that we belong to a community that is willing to help others be successful, even if that means no money in our pockets - at least, not right now. As Ted said, "be humble".

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

The first step in a site migration is the wish list. The wish list for your new site manifests into goals - those things you want the new site to be able to accomplish.

But goal-setting can quickly go awry if you don't have a framework for getting those goals on paper.

Let's go over a process for creating that wish list for the site and setting realistic goals that will get you what you need.

Before we dive in, here's the overview of a process for creating wish lists and setting goals for a new website:

1. Tell a story behind the idea or problem the current site or business is having, so everyone can relate to why the solution should be considered in the new website.

2. Find measurable items within the goals for the news site that give a baseline, so you can track progress on the old site versus the new site.

3. Take the time to understand everything that's involved in a wish list item before you accept it or throw it out, so you can set realistic and attainable goals.

3 Steps to Setting Great Goals for Your New Site

A site migration project usually starts with an idea. You know you need to make something better on the site, make something bad stop happening or support your business in new ways through your online presence.

Often, the first step in a wish list and setting goals is to communicate the problem and proposed solution to a group of people (everyone who has a stake in the site within the company).

1. Tell a Story About the Requirement for the New Site

In order to communicate your needs here, ask:

• Where are we currently?

• What's not working and why?

But tell a story.

No one else on the team can relate to the web developer's normalized database structure with 92 tables that will interlink the distributor data, inventory and menu systems together to increase the efficiency by 87 percent.

On the other hand, the Project Leader can tell a story that resonates with others. For example, let's say we have a client in the restaurant and food business that has a menu that changes daily. The Web developer could paint a picture:

"Currently, our client has to manually update their beer menu system by hand with chalk, and their website and Facebook tap pages, four to eight times per day. This is time consuming and interferes with their customer's experience, both online and on premise. Our solution needs to let any employee update the menu, the website, and Facebook at the same time. The menu is the decision point for customers so, the presentation should be easy to read, pleasant to view, and have an image, name, description, and price for each tap handle. When we are done, customers at the counter and online will view the same information. This will be a valuable solution for them and save them money each month. How can we do this for them?"

See? Now we can relate to the project. The complications haven't gone anywhere, but now the team can understand the problem before they dig into the details.

2. Be Clear About What You Want and Make Sure Its Measurable

Often, people will throw out generalizations about what the new website should do. But each proposed wish most definitely has a long list of complex tasks associated with it, and this all needs to be thought about before your team can even assess if the idea is worth turning into a goal for the new site.

Poor communication: "It needs to be better ... more robust."

Unpack that idea with:

• What does that mean exactly?

• How are we going to measure that?

• When we "arrive," how will we know?

That last bullet point - that's all about measurement. Vague, unmeasurable goals don't help.

It's possible the owner of the project hasn't given this much thought yet. In order to measure how the new site will perform, we need to look at our current state of affairs for cues.

In the menu example we talked about, we could measure how much time our client puts into website, Facebook, and menu updates currently. Another baseline could be how many minutes per day those are not accurate because:

• It takes so long to do each update, they just haven't made time for it yet.

• They are waiting for the person with the gifted handwriting to show up.

The minutes can be measured and we can compare today's solution to tomorrow's. If you look at your new website with measurable baselines, you can almost always find them. And the effort will pay off.

3. Be Sure the Goals for the Site Aren't Too Adventurous

Everyone gets starry-eyed at the thought of a new site and what it can do. In the "wish list" phase, no rock should go unturned, no idea shot down. Everyone who has a stake in the site should be heard.

What comes next is refining those ideas (and hopefully Step 2 makes it obvious what will work). This is the job of the site migration manager - the owner of the project. This person needs to be able to assess each wish list item against many factors.

In the end, it's hard to get buy-in around an unrealistic goal. The net effect is no one actually buys in.

You want to whittle that wish list down to attainable goals that have the most impact to the business or that are the most crucial for the new online presence. Remember to:

• Take your time and think about what's really important.

• Eliminate unnecessary things. Be able to communicate why they weren't chosen.

• Stay laser focused on the things that will make or break the project itself (remember, this is a lot of work).

With a focus on what's important and realistic objectives, you'll find this upfront effort worth its weight in gold. This sets the team up to win and gives you a site that has solid purpose.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

ritten by: Uri Bar -Joseph

 

On the heels of Google's earnings announcement, I thought it would be an appropriate time to confess.

 

It's hard to admit it, like the first time you're about to tell your high school sweetheart that you love her. Your pulse hits 180, your palms get sweaty but also cold at the same time, you open your mouth and no voice comes out.

What terrifies you the most is that you will admit it but she won't, or even worse, she would tell you she doesn't feel the same way. But you master the courage and you blurb out the dreadful words - "I love you."

I haven't always loved Google. Actually, not too long ago, I publicly endorsed findings about Google's declining paid search usage and encouraged marketers to stop using paid search altogether. I regret it today. Not because I think I was wrong - I was dead on - but because I don't want to offend Google.

The thing is, I don't really love Google. I admire Google, but it's more of a love-hate relationship than anything else. I love hating Google.

But to be truly honest, I'm mostly scared of Google. Maybe scared is too harsh. I am - professionally - terrified of Google.

Google Dominates the Search Market

You're probably familiar with the monthly comScore reports about the search market and Google's share of the market. Most reports in the last few years have shown a consistent, strong dominance of the market with anywhere from 65 percent to 70 percent market share attributed to Google.

The problem with these search market share reports is that they tell you nothing about your own segment. So we ran our own analysis on the B2B segment and found that Google actually controls almost 90 percent of that market.

Actually, in November 2012, Google exceeded the 90 percent market share with 90.15 percent of all organic search visits to B2B websites coming from Google.

 

These data points aligned with comScore reports showing November as Google's strongest month in years.

 

Organic Search #1 Driver of Traffic

Optify's annual B2B Marketing Benchmark report also revealed that organic search was ranked as the top driver of visits with 41 percent of visits originated from organic search. This stat, combined with Google's complete dominance of the Search market, makes Google the single most important referring domain in this segment.

Google is responsible for over 35 percent of all the visits to websites in this segment, and that includes my website. So call me crazy, but I'm terrified.

The Origin of Fear & Love

So why am I so terrified with Google that I'm willing to admit my undivided love? I'm terrified because at any point in time Google might decide that it doesn't love me anymore. And not that Google ever admitted its love to me, but actions (or data) speak louder than words, and over the years, Google has shown me that it really loves me.

Thousands of visitors, leads, pageviews, higher ranking keywords and better converting paid ads. In the last few years Google provided my company with enough revenue to sustain, grow, and scale the business; I think that's love.

But sometimes love comes with a price, and in recent years my relationship with Google transformed into a somewhat abusive relationship. Google has punished me for "not playing nice," prevented me from learning anything about my relationship with its other users and got offended when I decided to play with others.

So I'm fearful. I'm fearful that someday Google will decide that it no longer loves me. It will stop sending traffic my way, it will drop my rankings, it will block my access to more information and more data and it will charge me for what I'm currently getting for free. Can I survive the breakup?

 

Planning for a New World

My high school sweetheart broke up with me eventually. It was tough and there were tears involved. But I found a way to recover because there are "lots of fish in the sea." In retrospect, I'm glad it happened because it taught me a good lesson and consequently I met my wife.

But what would happen if Google suddenly breaks up with me? There aren't that many fish in that sea. What would I do if one day Google decides that it no longer loves me? Would I recover?

I started planning for my marketing world without Google and the future looked grim. More than 40 percent of my traffic, more than 15 percent of my leads, a significant amount of revenue will be gone. If Google, god forbids, breaks up with me tomorrow I'm in trouble.

All I'm left to do is to loudly confess my love, and then cross my fingers and pray to god that Google will love me back.

Google, I love you!

5 Tips for Diversifying Your Marketing Campaigns

·         Syndicate and promote your content everywhere. This is true not just to avoid the Google threat, but to make sure your content gets the most coverage.

 

·         Start using social media extensively. While social media is still only a fraction of total traffic and leads, it's gaining momentum and becoming a true contender to search.

 

·         Directories, bylines, guest posts, referrals. Following organic search and direct traffic, web referrals accounted for a significant share of traffic to B2B websites. To diversify your marketing campaigns, focus on getting mentions, write guest posts, list your company in directories, get reviews and answer questions on Q&A sites (Quora).

 

·         Run paid campaigns. Yes, I know, we all love and believe in bringing in free traffic, but that doesn't mean that we need to completely abandon outbound campaigns like email, display, PPC, direct mail, events, etc. In the pendulum of marketing tactics, we're swinging back from inbound to outbound.

 

·         Keep your SEO running. Preparing for a world without Google's love doesn't mean that you don't need to keep nurturing your current relationship with it. Keep your SEO running, and don't forget that what you do for Google, also applies to Bing, Yahoo, and the rest of the irrelevant search engines.

 

 See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and  SEO services,  just visit us at  www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Christian Arno

By concentrating a little extra effort in the following areas, you'll help give your site the edge over the competition.

Keywords Still Count

You certainly want the most effective long- and short-tail keywords. Solid keyword research is an essential part of both the optimization and wider SEO Processes.

Once you have them though, the trick appears to be to use them in as natural a way as possible. Google and other major search engines are getting better at recognizing synonyms as well, meaning you can mix things up and no longer have to juggle content to make it appealing to both web crawlers and the human eye.

When dealing with foreign language content, it's essential that you don't rely on straight "dictionary" translations - for your content in general and keywords in particular. A literal French translation of "car insurance", for example, is "l'assurance automobile". Running this through Google's keyword tool, however, indicates that the term yields very poor results.

Alternative terms such as "assurance auto" or "assurance voiture" are much more successful. You may find that colloquialisms, abbreviations, and regional variations all out-perform your translated English keywords.

Don't jettison previous research. Use it as a jumping off point and brainstorm alternatives, preferably with the assistance of a native speaking translator.

Organize Your Domain and URL

One place where you can use those painstakingly researched keywords is in your URL. This isn't crucial but can give a small boost in the rankings.

Additionally, both Google and Yahoo will display the portions of your URL that match the search term entered in bold in the SERPs. This can serve to catch a human eye even if you aren't at the top of the SERPs for that particular search term.

Google uses the content of the page to determine its language. They don't use code level information such as lang attributes so ensure the language is obvious by avoiding having side-by-side translations or content in one language and navigation in another. You can, however, use the URL to provide clues to visitors about the page's language and content.

The following URLs, for example, use fr as a subdomain or subdirectory to clearly indicate French content:

http://example.com/fr/nourriture-pour-chien.html

http://fr.example.com/nourriture-pour-chien.html

Using a country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) such as .fr for France or .co.uk for the UK can also be useful when it comes to targeting your content to a specific country. This can also have the added benefit of giving your localized site a more "local" feel, which can help to engender trust. If you decide to avoid the expense of a new domain name, you can still use Google's geo-targeting tool to specify a country or region.

Use Titles Consistently

Titles and subtitles are important positions for keywords. Search engines pay particular attention to what lies between the HTML heading tags, so make sure there's at least a H1 containing the primary keyword for every page of your site.

Do this for every page of every language or localized site. You can also double up on any subtitles you use by including them in a contents list of clickable links.

Don't Forget About Meta Tags

When Google recently announced it was (sort of) bringing back the keyword meta tag it was like a blast from the SEO past. keyword meta tag

It's long been accepted that using the keyword meta tag can generally do more harm than good as it's often seen as being on the spammier side of good practice. For the most part this advice still stands as the Google announcement pertained only to the news_keywords meta tag for Google News-accredited clients.

If that isn't you and you're not flagging a news story, continue to steer clear of the keyword tag. Optimizing your title tag and the description meta tag can be extremely useful however in providing additional information to the search engines on how a particular page should be indexed.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Ray Comstock

Does the word strategy refer to how to execute particular parts of the overall campaign? Or does it refer to the sum of the different parts of the campaign? Or rather does it refer to how we are going to prioritize resources or even prioritize SEO opportunities?

Does strategy refer to how we are going to integrate organic search optimization activities with other disciplines like social media, paid search, analytics as well as all other online and offline marketing activities?

Depending on who you ask, it means all of the above. So with so much potential confusion around the term SEO strategy, what follows is one basic approach to enterprise SEO campaigns which can really be scaled to any size organization.

It's important to address eight elements of SEO in a two phased approach:

• The foundational phase, in which we leverage the inherent values of the site, and 

• The continuous phase, in which we concentrate on program growth, primarily through new content production, link acquisition and social media marketing.

Without diving too deep into the eight elements, here is my list and my definition of each element or category of activities. Keep in mind that this is an arbitrary way to categorize the different sorts of tasks that are essential in a campaign:

1. Discovery: Understanding the business model, user personas, and ultimately the most important keywords for the campaign.

2. On-page Optimization: Aligning Page Titles, Meta data, H tags, alt tags and content to the target keywords.

3. Off-page Optimization: Optimization of internal and external links.

4. Site-wide SEO: Technical issues based on known best practices including duplicate content issues, indexing problems, URL structure or any other technical problem that affects your SEO performance.

5. Universal Search: Optimization of images, PDFs, shopping feeds, local search, and - most importantly - video.

6. Analytics: Ensuring that there is an analytics infrastructure to support reporting requirements.

7. User Experience: Evaluate and improve important user experience metrics like site speed, bounce rate, and time on site.

8. Social Media: Blogging alignment with SEO best practice, communicating keywords and preferred landing pages to all social teams, ensuring that high value URLs are shared via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as well as evaluate possible SEO benefits from aligning any other social media activities with SEO best practices.

Each of these different elements has a different set of activities within each phase of the program. Some activities are the same across both phases. For example, the on page optimization process is very similar in both phases. In other words, the process for optimizing a new page of content (continuous phase activity) is the same as optimizing a previously existing page of content (foundational phase activity) although, in the continuous phase we might be making additional tweaks to the optimization over the course of time.

However, the link building tactics are mostly different. In the foundational phase the only link building we do is around easily executed and scalable activities like press release optimization or partner link optimization.

Whereas in the continuous phase, the emphasis is on content marketing and campaign based opportunities. The idea being that content marketing is often more difficult to execute with higher risk.

Therefore, those activities should be done only after one fully leverages the existing opportunities that easier to control. This allows for more effective prioritization of resources.

Here is a basic cadence for the foundational phase:

1. Discover the goals of the business, program goals, understand customer persona data if available.

2. Ensure that there is an analytics system in place that supports performance measurement that tracks to goals and that it is properly configured.

3. Technical diagnostic to ensure problems with indexation:

   • Eliminate duplicate content.

   • Optimize page speed.

   • URL structure.

   • Canonical tags.

   • Redirects.

   • Flash/Ajax issues.

4. Keyword research.

5. Keyword categorization.

6. Mapping keywords to preferred landing pages for user experience.

7. Prioritize which pages to manually optimize (on page optimization).

8. Develop an algorithm to ensure that all pages of lesser priority are optimized and have unique page titles.

9. Optimize the global navigation template of the site.

10. Optimize additional internal site link opportunities.

    
    

And here is a basic cadence for the continuous phase:

1. Performance monitoring.

2. Performance reporting.

3. Ad hoc adjustments to existing on-page optimization based on performance.

4. Content gap analysis.

5. Keyword research:

   • Refinement of existing target list.

   • Opportunity exploration.

   • Ad hoc for new content.

6. Optimization of new content/URLs

   • On-page (page titles, meta data, H tags, content).

   • Off-page (internal links, linked alt attributes).

7. Link acquisition campaigns via content marketing:

   • Competitive research.

   • Content ideation.

   • Content creation.

   • Content marketing.

   • Campaign management and reporting.

8. Optimization of new videos/images.

This entire process can be scaled across multiple regions with the only real tangible difference being the translation and localization in the keyword research to ensure that you're targeting the appropriate localized keywords for your business model.

Now admittedly this isn't a complete comprehensive list of all activities nor am I going to go into great length on how to execute these tasks. For example I haven't mentioned user testing to improve bounce rate and conversion or SEO best practices training for content teams.

What this should give you is a solid foundation on the basics of constructing an enterprise SEO program that makes sense, is efficient, and maximizes your resources. In other words, it's a pretty solid SEO strategy.

There have been hints over the years that the engines were getting wise to certain questionable linking tactics, but nothing quite as dramatic as what took place in 2012. Several techniques that had worked for years stopped working.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Eric Ward

Another year has come and gone. For link builders, 2012 may well be remembered as the year that link building truly changed forever.

There have been hints over the years that the engines were getting wise to certain questionable linking tactics, but nothing quite as dramatic as what took place in 2012. Several techniques that had worked for years stopped working.

Link networks discovered and devalued, site after site vanishing from rankings. Warnings from the engines themselves about "unnatural" links. New services promising link profile cleansing and webmasters being given the opportunity to disavow the very links they so eagerly went after (and perhaps paid for) not long ago. And these are just some of the linking related events that took place.

Indeed, 2012 was the year link building changed. Forever.

We can argue about the details. I've been petty vocal that nothing changed at all other than the engines getting smarter, and this single change then caused a domino effect that impacted sites and services that some would say had no business being in business in the first place.

Maybe the larger truth is that for some, link building changed forever while for others (who never ventured down darker alleys) not much changed at all. I know from my own perspective of 18+ years on link building's front line, nothing much changed at all for me.

The techniques and tactics I've used since 1994 are absolutely as effective today as they were then, with the added advantage that we now have even more methods to help URLs migrate and be pushed along and throughout the web. If you know what you're doing, the reality is it's actually easier today than it was back then to get attention and links for truly outstanding content.

So let's be candid. The primary thing that's happened is it's gotten harder to get crappy content to rank high. And for this, we should all be thankful. I will now duck so the arrows hopefully miss me.

But enough about 2012.

Where are things headed in 2013 from a link building perspective? Let's take a look at several aspects of the linking ecosphere and I'll go out on some limbs and give you my best guesses as to what you might see in 2013, and what to do about it if you so choose.

Tactics and Topics

In no particular order...

The tactic:

Gold, silver and bronze (or something similar) link building packages that can be purchased at a set price by any site about any topic.

2013 prediction:

These types of services really never should have worked, that is if they ever truly did. While you shouldn't expect companies to quit selling them, I can say with a high degree of confidence that your site's success (or failure) won't be determined by any one-size-fits-all linking service. Earl's House of Hubcaps and Dr. Scholl's Bunion Reliever don't need the same links, and why am I still having to say this?

The tactic:

Analytics, that is, the analyzing of every possible aspect of every possible link so that we know every possible thing about the links that link (or don't link) to us or to our competitors, or to whatever site we're curious about.

2013 prediction:

While currently dominated by big names like SEOmoz and Majestic, and in niches by specialists like Blekko and AdGooroo's Link Insight, I expect more players to enter this niche.

The challenge is not so much in analyzing the data. The challenge is in correctly selecting the right data to analyze, and then correctly selecting the strategies and tactics that will help you the most. Anchor text, I'm looking at you.

How many people incorrectly pursued anchor text strategies based on competitive linking analysis and then saw their rankings implode in 2012.

Sometimes data is a dangerous thing.

Bonus prediction: there will be a surprise player emerge in 2013 that will dramatically impact the link analysis niche. Don't say LinkMoses didn't tell you. It's coming.

The tactic:

Press releases. I would love to see data showing the change in numbers of embedded links in press releases from 1996 to today.

In some ways I'd argue that not having any links in your press release makes it more credible. But then how would the engines know about your site? And there's the problem.

Most people today issue press releases not to announce something truly newsworthy, but rather because it's another way to shove a link or two or three, anchor text included, down the search engines throats. I think I'm going to issue a press release filled with links that says press release links don't work.

2013 prediction:

The secret to effective use of press releases is in where your place them and in formatting the version that's on your own site differently the one you send out via a wire service. If you aren't putting your press releases about your company on your own site, that's a mistake and a huge opportunity lost.

What content would you trust more, content you find on 7million-press-releases.com, or the press release you place on your own site which has its own existing and credible link profile?

The tactic:

Mobile. There's many ways to play mobile. You could create an app, a mobile version of your site, both, or partner with an existing app.

I absolutely love mobile from a link building perspective, but some marketers are missing many easy gets.

You can implement mobile linking strategies for clients who don't have a mobile site or an app or a webcast. You just have to be creative and aware. One example: any restaurant that takes reservations can pursue inclusion in already existing restaurant finder/reservation apps.

2013 prediction:

Those who don't take the time to learn the potential and available mobile opportunities will be left behind. Having a website is fine, and thinking of your site as the mother ship of your online presence is fine as well, but in 2013 the mother ship by herself is lonely. She needs to make sure she has plenty of smaller ships orbiting around her, some quite independently, but all still contributing to a common end game.

Final Thoughts

I know this will sound like heresy, but I hope in 2013 people might finally stop calling what I and others like me do "link building". My business card says I'm an online content publicist, and has always said that. I'm only called a link builder because that's the industry term that stuck. I've never felt it properly described or encompassed what we do.

The purpose of the online content publicist is to help content get discovered, and not just via a search result. That discovery can take place in any number of ways, and today, more than ever, it's less about links and more about discovery. Recognizing the growing number of ways your content, your company, your product, your services can be discovered, found, and shared.

Link wisely!

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and SEO services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Jason Tabeling

2012 was an awkward year for financial services. There was continuation of low interest rates, an election, and the impending fiscal cliff all clouded the view of the future this year.

This year should be driven by sophistication in the marketplace as brands start to catch up and create next-level best practices to what have traditionally been emerging trends. This year will be fueled with continued growth around usage and demand.

For brands, that means staying sharp on the following three key trends.

1. Growth of the Mobile Divide

In 2012, we saw continued growth in the paid search channel for financial services clients. However, what was very clear was the growth in connected devices (smartphones and tablets). These areas drove growth at rates that were 11 times the growth of desktop. These growth numbers, while impressive, probably should be shocking.

2. Valuation of Offline Behaviors

The growth in mobile and the continuation of localization of search results will put pressure on financial services firms to put a more finite value on offline conversion metrics. This includes the call center, and branch/agent locations.

Below is a screenshot from our usability testing around local terms that helps show how users view the results page:

User's eyes are drawn to maps and local listings. With local extensions showing more frequently and showing in conjunction with sitelinks, offline actions will require valuation. Even a simple model to value branch locators as an example can help provide some insights back to your optimization strategy.

3. More Engines/Partners Running From Paid Search Budgets

Expect 2013 PPC budgets to be more diversified outside of Google paid search.

Now don't get me wrong, Google's share of marketing budgets will likely continue to increase, but it will come from mobile and display as demonstrated earlier. The growth of real-time bidding for display networks, as well as some modest growth in Bing, will create more areas for PPC strategists to pay attention to.

Also, financial services has its own version of retails comparison shopping engines (a.k.a., lead aggregators), such as Bankrate, SureHits, and Brokers Web. These websites are incremental places to gather CPC based traffic, and in many cases pre-qualify those leads better than Google can.

These opportunities to add incremental traffic, and diversity for financial services brands portfolio, will be increasingly important in 2013.

Summary

Expect 2013 to be a big bounce back year for financial services, and specifically the evolution of paid search. Happy New Year!

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Jim Yu

2012 has been a year of rapid change. The markets have changed, the search algorithms have changed, the SERP results have changed, and how we define what we do is changing.

We're in an industry that is now 15 years old and growing rapidly. SEO is forecast to be a $2.2 billion industry, according to the Forrester U.S. Interactive Marketing forecast 2011 to 2016.

The growth and importance of SEO and the fusion of search, site, and social fueled by advancement and integration of technology brings opportunity to scale our search and integrated marketed efforts to best effect for the best results. Here are some tips and a process that will help you build and, most importantly, scale your SEO campaigns in 2013.

What is Enterprise SEO?

A common misconception about enterprise SEO is that it is directly related to company size. Many companies and large brands with complex infrastructures, multi departments, multiple site and multiple products are well suited to enterprise SEO. However, small companies that manage large and multiple sites also use enterprise SEO.

Enterprise SEO involves managing search and social campaigns holistically using a suite of integrated tools that include monetary, productivity, and relationship management type solutions. From a technological perspective - it is a platform of integrated tools and features.

                                                                                                                                                           

Building Your 2013 Enterprise SEO Solution

Enterprise SEO captures and builds upon opportunities not just across your site, search and social campaigns but focuses on the interplay of data across these functions. How you use this data, execute and align action throughout your organization will be critical to your success in 2013.

Here are many ways to build an enterprise SEO campaign. For many, at first, the task may seem a little daunting. Above is a structured way of looking at it and breaking it down to make the process easier to digest.

Link Analysis and Link Building

All your enterprise link building strategies are built to pursue 100 percent white hat practices.

Understanding and adapting to the way that SEO has changed is essential. Keeping up with change and innovation is a time and resource heavy tasks. 

A great example of this type of best practice is highlighted in a detailed 8 page Majestic SEO and Rosetta Marketing Whitepaper on backlink management and best practices.

Local and Mobile

Google's recent changes with regard to social signals and local search signify an important shift and focus on mobile search as, in parallel, mobile adoption rates surge.

Search is also more local now as results vary by location and your enterprise SEO technology needs to deliver refined SEO success metrics and variables based on location.

Global

Many enterprise SEO campaigns need to also reach global audiences. For many, ranking globally is a top priority. Not only does this boost your marketing ROI, it also maintains your brand online and globally.

Now actually managing a global SEO is campaign is a whole post or two in itself as you look for variance and differences across local nuisances, translation, search engine types, and global law. Crispin Sheridan from SAP gives some great tips here on global SEO best practices.

Blended Search and Universal Search

SERPs now not only include blue links but also images, video, places, and news, among others. Your 2013 enterprise SEO strategy should make use of this opportunity to dominate the SERP by:

Tracking and analyzing universal rank performance for its keywords. It gives you more visibility into how different content types are doing on the SERPs

As the market has a renewed focus on content in 2013 measuring how and where your content ranks.

Social

Enterprise SEO requires looking across traditional SEO techniques and social media channels. Social is a productive channel since search engines increasingly rely on social media traction for pages in order to decide how to rank them. Social media, influence and social media link building should all form part of your 2013 strategy.

For example, enterprise SEO teams are increasingly using Twitter to drive SEO campaigns. Leading brands like Adobe and Tiny Prints have actually driven rank by increasing tweets sharing those pages.

Execution and Return

CRM, workflow and task management are a huge part on enterprise SEO campaigns - especially those for large brands that have multiple departments, sites, and reporting structures.

Good enterprise SEO involve technology and systems that align goals and objectives across your/your clients organization efficiently.

Streamlined Execution

Your enterprise SEO strategy should be set up to take the in-depth analytics and data and actually act on it. It should also foster a collaborative mindset driven by streamlining the way marketing activities are executed. It should also provide full visibility into how the teams are executing on its goals.

Executive Buy in and Operational SEO

A true enterprise SEO strategy across sites, search and social needs executive buy in and support. The execution of your strategy is dependent on multiple teams and team members doing their job in a collaborative manner - this varies between brand/in-house and agency models.

There are multiple moving parts that span across all areas of marketing, content, PR, and demand generation. Under such circumstances, it helps to have an executive champion ready to solve any technical, financial and people issues while reinforcing the important of the enterprise SEO strategy.

Close the Loop on ROI

After you run forecasts, run analysis on what's working across channels, it's important to see if you actually got the ROI you should.

For example, if you assigned a dollar value for a keyword opportunity that you pursued, did you actually realize the goals? If not, why? What went wrong? Were you projections off and was that due to any assumptions? Or was it a problem of execution - were you slow to execute on the content development plans in order to boost rank?

The reasons could be dime a dozen - the point is, after every project assess your ROI achievements and be sure to look across your:

• Your data across sites, search and social

• Your execution

• ROI projections

What's more - providing a tight integration of analytics with SEO enables companies to pull in ROI measurement and glean insights on how their efforts are performing and what actions they need to take. Integration allows you, as marketers and not just SEO professionals, to look across channels to measure total productivity across all digital disciplines.

2013 will involve looking closely at not just SEO, but also how it relates to content and social media and broader digital marketing and cross channel integration. More on that next year.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit 

us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Richard Kirk

• Ranking for 1655 keywords across 14 clients in 3 different languages (PL, DE, UK) on day 1 of the year / engagement, vs. ranking on last week of November.

• Data covers a total of 376 weeks (not all clients have been with us since Jan 1st, and for most we migrated platforms part-way through the year)

• Monthly search volume (exact) across all keywords was 7,738,237 per month

  
  

  The Good:

  • Across all keywords, client average rank had gone up 12.9 positions since the start of the year / engagement.

  • Our client's visibility had risen in more instances (against 33% of keywords our clients saw a positive rank change) than decreased (we only saw a negative rank change against 9% of keywords)

  • Our clients appeared in the top 3 positions on SERPs more often. Across all clients, on week 1 of their engagement we ranked in the top 3 positions against 247 keywords, at latest count our clients rank in the top 3 against 352 terms, a rise of 42%.

  • The number of keywords for which our clients do not rank has fallen dramatically: From 1028 keywords down to 789, a fall of 23%.

  Not bad, especially when you consider that most of our clients tend to be very large corporate brands. Sometimes just getting a project underway and optimised content onto the website is a major challenge, so to see such positive figures proves to me that our practice is going in the right direction.

  
  We are driven by the following 2 statements:

  To rank #1 for a keyword, you must deserve to be above all other relevant sites; you must own the best piece of relevant content on the web.

  SEO happens when you create great experiences for BOTH users AND search engines ...and all of our tactics reflect these truths.

  • We have pushed clients to move beyond basic optimisation and build content that adds value to people in-market for their products / services

  • We have built hundreds of relationships with website owners in 2012, with the output being high quality, relevant links for our clients.

  • We try to base content on what has proved to be successful for other brands and websites, rather than just having a default "build a landing page about the keyword" approach. Given these results, we will be sticking with this broad approach over the next year.

    
    

  The Bad:

  • For 9% of all our keywords (152 terms), ranking fell. The total audience for these terms was over 862,350 exact match searches per month.

  • For 21 terms (1.3% of all keywords) we had dropped out of the top 100 results altogether.

  Losing visibility for nearly 10% of all tracked keywords really is a major concern. This decline wasn't concentrated on one particular client or keyword area, and none of our clients were penalised last year by Google, so I am satisfied that our efforts to convince other website owners to link to our client's content are not at fault.

  To me, this is a case of keywords slipping through the cracks because our keyword lists are too long. In 2013 we are going to focus on producing keyword lists that only contain terms we believe tie into our content plans and that will actually impact on client performance. You can see my posts on a new, fairer method for keyword research here.

  2. The Indifferent

  Around 12% of our terms rank in the same place now as they did when the respective engagements began: the vast majority of these are brand terms or generic keywords where we have always ranked #1.To me the real story comes in the number of keywords which haven't ranked during 2012. Of the 1655 keywords we have been tracking, our clients remain unranked for 757. That's 46% of our total keywords. Major problem. Based on the idea that "you will rank #1 when you have the best piece of relevant content on the web" we quickly established 2 truths about the majority of keywords that had not ranked all year:

  1. Keywords were unrealistic for our client given their current web assets. E.g. one client asked us to track "save time" because there were some very specific timesaving tips to do with a key product on their website. In reality there is no way a specialised piece of content would deserve to rank #1 for a very general term.

  2. Keywords were relevant for the client but not present on the website. E.g. one client wanted to rank for "cheap cars" but refused to use the word "cheap" on their website. Another common flaw was having "review" keywords in our keyword lists but no review-based content on the actual website.

  To improve performance, these are two problems our agency has to tackle in 2013. I suspect that amongst the SEO industry we are not alone.We want to retain the idea that SEO is about creating content which will earn its own distribution rather than SEO being a group of people building links to crap pages. We also want to do better at setting client expectations on the keywords it could realistically expect to rank for. As a result, we believe SEO in 2013 is going to be about the following:

  1. Base work on content initiatives, not landing pages. A content initiative is a project that revolves around the development and publication of a resource. The key point is that this resource adds a ton of value to people in your target market. E.g. for a financial services client you might build a free PDF eBook which covers every aspect of setting up an online business, with useful tips and recommendations for each step of the process. Using this resource as an anchor, you can develop a full distribution plan in advance of publication, then execute upon launch. When a great piece of content and a distribution plan come together, you have a content initiative.

  2. Base engagements on shorter, more focussed lists of keywords. In order to rank #1 we almost need an individual content strategy for each keyword, and so having 200 keywords per engagement is just unrealistic; major corporate clients are not going to cope with that many new initiatives. Fewer keywords = easier to prioritise where to begin less chance of inaction.

  With regard to the second point we have already completely revamped our keyword research process, and now we are moving towards a point where we have a full process in place for planning and executing content initiatives. Whilst looking at our entire dataset for ranking was a bit traumatic, and there were undoubtedly some harsh truths to take on board, I'm glad we did it because it has reinforced our core principles, and helped us identify the most urgent areas for attention in 2013. As an SEO team we can accept that you aren't always going to improve ranking for every single term, but we're determined that we'll see more action and better results next year. It'd be great to hear what you guys are doing to update and adapt next year - see you in the comments!

  
  See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

  
  

  
  
  

  For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, 

  
  

  just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

  
  

Written by: Guillame Bouchard

Building relationships is a new beast to tame. It's not about trying to influence machines - it's about trying to influence people. Every human is a kaleidoscope of attitudes, behaviors, and emotions.

 

Empathy,immersing oneself in the prospect's world is an asset for fostering trust, negotiating exchanges, and building lasting relationships. 

1. Man (and Woman) is a Perpetually Dissatisfied Animal

Time warp back to philosophy class. Karl Marx's theory of production and consumption says, "When basic needs have been met, this leads to the creation of new needs."

Every prospect you contact has a need, something they want or they don't know they can have - yet. The first step for building relationships is identifying why the person that you're trying to foster a connection with would benefit from a relationship with you.

Robert Cialdini, author of "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion", identifies six key principles of persuasion. The very first principle is reciprocity: "People tend to return a favor". The idea is that when someone makes an effort to do something for us, our moral fabric tends to make us feel obliged to do something in return.

If your client sells shoes and you approach a fashion blogger with a free pair to review, their conscience (and their shoe addiction) will make them happy to review.

Not only does your offer have to be creative when you approach a prospect, it has to relate to how they can achieve a goal.

This may mean having to re-evaluate your link acquisition strategy with your clients, to identify the collateral you can exchange with prospects, whether free samples and trials, exclusive offers, or expertise.

2. Personality Can Tell us a Lot About What Motivates People

The extinct practice of paying for links is now frowned upon by most SEOs, bloggers, and search engines alike. Since Google's Penguin/Panda updates, outreach solely based on "link building" significantly reduces your response rates and terminates your chances of being considered on an A-list blog.

Now you have to work harder to learn more about who you're contacting and what you can offer each other in the long-term. There's a lot more involved than just evaluating the keyword relevancy or pagerank value of a site.

The secret to relationships lies in knowing people's underlying interests, needs, and values. That's what helps you determine what motivates them and how you can help each other in the future.

Every one of your prospects is a potential ally. And empathy is the way you will step into their world, and understand what drives their behavior and how you can influence it.

Fortunately (for marketers), you can tell a lot about a person by what they post online. They leave an entire trail of digital footprints for you to follow, from their "About" page, their blog posts, their LinkedIn profile, to what kind of stuff they post on Twitter and Facebook. Your detective work is all laid out for you. It just takes a few extra clicks and a little curiosity.

3. Identify Relevant "Currencies"; Theirs and Yours

MindTools' Influence Model talks about using "relevant currencies" in order to influence people. The model was actually developed for a work setting, but it's incredible how these principles can be applied to relationship building. The idea is to establish what the most meaningful "currency" is to the person you are reaching out to.

The five currencies below can be great sources of inspiration when you're negotiating an exchange:

Inspiration-related currencies. People who value these currencies want to find meaning in what they're doing. To appeal to these people, approach them with a cause, something that will lead to a greater good.

Task-related currencies. Task-related currencies are often highly valued where supplies and resources may be scarce. Offer them your client's expertise on a topic that's relevant to their site that they haven't covered yet.

Position-related currencies. People who value this currency focus on recognition, reputation, and visibility. Create content relevant to their interests that make an active attempt to engage them, either directly through the content or through social channels.

Relationship-related currencies. People who value relationships want to belong. These people want to feel connected on a personal level, with you or the organization you're representing. Show them that they aren't just a means to an end and involve them in various initiatives.

Personal-related currencies. These currencies relate to the other person on a personal level. You should give courtesy and gratitude for the help you receive. It's as simple as writing "Thank You" follow up emails, sharing a person's blog post, and making it a habit of acknowledging people for their efforts.

4. The Medium is the Message

From email to Google+, Facebook to face-to-face, each of these communication channels has their own unique characteristics, much like the people who use them.

Marshall McLuhan stated that the medium through which we choose to communicate holds as much value than the message itself. One contact might like IM, another might always be on Twitter - it's good to know where people want to be reached.

5. Influence is Give and Take

In Francisco Dao's article Networking is for losers, he makes a key point that sums up how you should approach building relationships; a road to quality versus a shooting slope to quantity:

"A few strong relationships can open far more doors than a thousand evenings of glad handing and networking."

With that, keep in mind these six steps for building fruitful and lasting relationships. See if getting to know the person behind the email address might be worth the time and the nurturing.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services,

 just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Mark Jackson

How many people wanted to build the next Google, Facebook, or Yahoo?

Same for SEO.

One of the chief reasons why I have written so many columns myself with speaking/moderating at conferences and even teaching SEO is to try and show some "thought leadership", and differentiate my company from those that send out cringe-worthy emails boasting their prowess and guaranteeing "top 10 Google rankings, overnight!"

Still, though, it seems like a good percentage of people laying claim to "doing SEO" really don't. And, because their rates are typically very favorable (read: "cheap"), a lot of business owners are inclined to give them a shot. Then, months later, they realize that not much is happening/changing and they walk away - thinking to themselves, SEO doesn't work...I tried it.

That's a damn shame.

Ex-Googler Andre Weyher, who worked on Google's webspam team with Matt Cutts, was recently interviewed by Jayson DeMers and asked about the "biggest misconceptions or myths that he had seen about 'bad links' and link profile penalties in the SEO community." His response:

I think I could write a book about this topic! SEO is an unprotected title and anyone can call him or herself one. The result of this is that there are almost as many opinions as there are SEOs. Some of the biggest misconceptions that I have seen out there include; "directories are altogether bad" or "anything that is below a certain PR is considered spammy by Google", I see a lot of people panicking and cutting off the head to cure the headache due to lack of knowledge.

Damn skippy. That's the truth.

Whether it's the IT guy who says "I can handle the SEO", or the web design firm who claims to "build in" SEO with their websites or the marketing person who says "I can write a title tag", the vast majority of "SEO advice" that people are getting is coming from folks who don't - in my opinion - "really" do this.

OK, yes, sometimes all a website needs is some decent title tags and clean/good URL structure to make things better. However, to truly "optimize" (meaning "make it as good as it can be"), I firmly believe that the smart move is to engage someone who really does this for a living.

Would the web designer really know what good link building is, in today's environment (or how to do it)? Would the IT guy know how to conduct meaningful keyword research or a competitive analysis, much less understand how to properly construct an information architecture or best utilize social channels towards SEO goals? Or website quality?

Still, though, the industry still has a bit of a reputation management issue. And, to be fair and completely honest, my company had a bad review on Yelp (happy to share this story with anyone who wants to discuss) and this one bad review cost me - at least - one prospective opportunity.

All it takes is one bad review for folks to say "NEXT!", because they are completely gun shy about selecting a firm that won't work out. We have many other (positive) reviews, but they were filtered.

Typically, I don't spend a lot of time on our own company's SEO efforts, but after knowing that I had lost an opportunity, I felt compelled to do something about it.

The same person who had told me that they weren't going to consider us because of our Yelp Review also told me "you're not an accredited business with the BBB". That sealed our fate, apparently. So we took the following steps:

1. Became accredited with the BBB.

2. Found a Yelp power user who was a client and asked if they'd mind writing an honest review. (We have two reviews as of this writing.)

3. Posted a video interview with a long-time client on YouTube and optimized the title to include our company name plus the word "review". (If you do this, consider including it on an optimized testimonials page on your website.)

Now, I can't say that any of the above has proven any attributable ROI to date (we just uploaded the video to YouTube in late October), but I have taken some additional steps to try and provide some additional peace of mind to those who may be considering our company and showing that we are worthy of trust.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

As much as link building has been shaken up over the past year, many things have remained the same, and they're the same ideas and tactics that also worked years ago. I suspect they'll continue to work, and continue to be argued about.

We all say that content is what builds links, and while it can and does, it isn't always that simplistic a concept. Great content will naturally attract links, and depending upon the strength and visibility of the site where this content is listed, very little promotional effort may be necessary.

But with all the unnatural link warnings, crackdowns on link networks, and Google Penguin targeting link spam, many marketers are a bit lost about what still works. Well, these seven "golden rules" of link building are designed to help you get back to basics about appropriate linking.

Rule 1: Great content on a great site will attract attention, whether it's from actual links, social shares, people talking about it on outside sites or forums, etc.

Honestly, if you have a great site, you can sometimes get away with content that doesn't rock the house. We've all read posts on popular sites where things are usually top notch, yet there's a post that is utter crap, but it still gets attention and may even generate loads of links.

I remember a few times in college where I made zero effort on a paper yet still received a good grade on it, and I'm convinced that it was because I usually got good grades. I had friends who thought that this happened to them as well.

I just recently read a novel called "White Teeth" by Zadie Smith, widely hailed as a brilliant novel, and I loved it. I loved it so much that I bought her newest book. But you know what? Had I not read "White Teeth" and thought she was so amazing, I would've stopped reading the new one early because it wasn't all that good.

Rule 2. Great content on a not-so-great site that no one sees will need help in order to generate buzz.

While I hesitate to call my agency blog "crap" it certainly doesn't have the readership of a site like SEW. I did a crowdsourced piece that included very well-respected participants.

I thought about publishing the post on a site that got more visibility than we do. However, I put it on our site, promoted it, had the benefit of the participants' promoting it, and it did OK, but it didn't do well enough for the effort and names involved.

I think that if I'd written it for a site with much more visibility and credibility, it would have done 10 times better than it did, if not more. If the SEOs mentioned in this piece hadn't helped me promote it, there's no way I could have gotten eyes on it without going overboard to promote it myself.

3. If you're actively going after a link (whether you're asking for it, hinting that you'd like it, sending the webmaster a fat Amazon gift card, or outright giving a webmaster cash), you should make sure that the link is worth your time and effort.

I won't lie and say that every link we build fits this ideal, but it's how we approach a potential link. Will this link be beneficial to the target site? Will someone click on it and thus turn into converted traffic? If so, that's an awesome link.

4. If your only online marketing strategy is link building (or any other single tactic), you're setting yourself up to fail.

It's fine if you have $15,000 a month to use to buy links because it's easier to throw that money at someone and not have to worry about optimizing the site itself or building a community or, at the very least, trying to get some social love for your site.

However, as we've seen from the algorithm updates and crackdowns of the past few years, what works well can easily and suddenly stop working. If all you do is guest post, what happens when guest posts are the latest victim of Google's decision to lessen their power?

5. If you're using link building tactics that are short-sighted and dangerous, you should have a backup plan for when you get caught and penalized.

OK, I'm not juding anyone here. Honestly, I do use risky tactics for certain campaigns, with the sign off of the client who's been heavily warned about the reality of what could happen. 

That said, if you're putting all your eggs into one basket and those eggs are from one farm that's about to be shut down for health violations, you may want to, um, get some eggs from different places. Just sayin'.

If you're buying links, for example, make sure you can still get relevant traffic from other places if Google penalizes or deindexes you. Remember the outcry when networks were cracked down on in the spring, and loads of small businesses failed because they'd built their entire online presence on top of those?

6. However, there is a reality that some people have faced, and that is that with many updates, there is collateral damage and you can't plan for when you're accidentally victimized by the latest change.

How many crap exact match domains (EMDs) are still ranking, and ranking better, after the latest EMD crackdown? Loads. I've actually seen some rise into the top 10 when I've never seen them before.

My own site has been deindexed in Google before. Although it was only for about 48 hours, it made me think about the people whose businesses rely so much on being found on Google. My site doesn't at the moment, so I'm lucky. But the frustration of being out of the index when I did nothing to warrant it really made me think about making sure that if it does happen again and it's permanent (or at least longer than two days) I have other ways of moving forward and continuing to keep the doors open.

I also work with a site where they do all the right things, and I mean really, more than anyone I deal with, they do all the right things. Every time there's an update, their rankings fall off.

I see no reason for it as they don't do whatever it is that the latest updates target. Are they just sensitive to algorithmic changes? Maybe, but if a site doing everything right is that sensitive, what about the ones who, for whatever reason, have something not so wonderful in their history or profile?

7. Like it or not, some sites will most likely have to rely on techniques that are frowned upon.

Sometimes you need to just make your own calls and do what you think you have to do. Judge that if you want to, but think about what you'd do if you relied on ranking well in an industry where everyone was buying links, for example. If that was your livelihood and taking a stand against link buying would mean you'd start moving down in the rankings until you lost everything, what would you do?

If you use article syndication and press releases, two tactics that are occasionally trashed yet remain popular and successful methods that aren't a violation of Google's guidelines like buying links is, what will you think when Google does add those to its ever-growing list of "things we don't really like anymore"?

If you're an affiliate who has done well without having to have loads of content and you've never done anything to violate Google's guidelines, what are your thoughts on their new issue with "thin affiliate" sites? Will you automatically bulk up your sites with content bloat, or switch gears even though you're doing just fine?

Summary

I suppose that I'm glad to work in an industry where things do change a lot, as it's never boring. It's often frustrating to see the fallout though, and all I can do is try my best to minimize it for the sites I work with.

It can be quite challenging trying to do things the right way, especially since the right way keeps getting adjusted. Links still get blamed when a site tanks though, and it'd be nice if people looked elsewhere and not immediately assume bad links are the cause of nearly every problem, as many times search ranking changes have nothing to do with bad links.

Link builders need to step up and learn more about online marketing and SEO. We used to be generalists, and then many of us moved into specialty niches within the industry. Is it time we branch out into generalism again?

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com.

Written by: Dave Davies

Every SEO professional reading this who's had more than one client has undoubtedly been faced with the following statement, "I know you got my rankings up, but when do you expect to see my PageRank increase?"

There are many replies that quickly race through the head from the slightly cheeky, "Let's worry about that when it matters," to the more obvious "Oh God, what forums have you been reading?" But you're a business-person and so instead you launch into your now well-rehearsed discussion about what does and doesn't matter when it comes to promoting a site online.

This issue got me thinking, rather than repeating the same discussion over and over, why not write an article outlining all the commonly misunderstood metrics thrown around?

Before we get into all that however, let me invite you to comment below on additional metrics and questions we're all asked about that are less than relevant. We all may be able to share replies but if not, at least you'll feel better knowing that others feel your pain. Misery does love company.

Who's To Blame For Misinformation?

Any frustration shouldn't be aimed at the client. The client isn't an SEO and further, their information is gathered from somewhere. That somewhere may be a blog post from 2006, but they have no way of knowing what is or isn't relevant any more than I know how to perform the surgeries that some of my doctor clients do regularly.

The problem is amplified by the fact that incorrect information is useful as a sales tool to specific segments of the SEO community and so even newer pitches include references to "building one zillion links per month" or "building links from PageRank 8 domains" and so it persists (you can read about that segment of the community in Kristine Schachinger's article from last week, "Meet the White Hats, Gray Hats, Black Hats & Asshats"

Fortunately, there are resources like SEW that provide up-to-date information we can send our client's to for clarification (especially in those instances when it's helpful to have a trusted third party reinforce what we're telling them).

The Best Explanation

Without getting into specifics, it's often easiest to simply note that the signals used by Google are numerous and fluid. With over 200 signals used to rank a website, it's about balance. Chase one signal (like that little green bar) and you'll never have a balanced SEO strategy that will withstand the test of time.

Let's Talk Metrics

So let's talk about the metrics that don't matter and clear up any confusion. The four most common areas I get questions about in this category are:

PageRank

Let's be clear, when I'm talking about PageRank here I'm referring to the green bar, not Google's internal PageRank calculations and that's an important distinction. Mike Grehan's "How Search Engines Work" provides an in-depth explanation of Google's PageRank algorithm.

Now, the number Google displays in the toolbar may or may not be an accurate reflection of a sites true strength. There's the fundamental problem number one.

Another core issue with regarding PageRank as a measure of a site's ability to rank is that it assumes all is equal. The fact of the matter is, chasing PageRank is quite easy if that's your focus.

Personally, I prefer to chase page rank (i.e., How does my page rank in the SERPs?). If you want to chase the little green bar, secure links (images are fine) from high PageRank sites. Don't worry about relevancy, anchors or any of the pesky real-world considerations of value... focus on getting links from high PageRank sites.

And hey, since it's clear that stable rankings aren't actually important - go ahead and buy them. Just be sure the PageRank is passing to other sites the page links to.

Note: just to be clear, this is tongue-in-cheek. Do not buy links and focus your energies on strategies that matter.

IBL (In-Bound Links)

Alright, let's be very, very clear that I'm not saying that a solid link strategy isn't important, but I can't count the number of emails I get talking about building hundreds and even thousands of links per month for ridiculously low rates. I've also done competitive research that would be frightening if all I looked at was numbers.

Yes, links are important. No, you can't simply look at link numbers and assume that matching those will yield a victory in the results.

How Google (and Bing - let's not forget them) value links is an ever-changing and highly complex function that changes almost daily. Solid SEO professionals will know that it's possible to craft very solid rankings with significantly fewer links, provided the quality of the links is high and the link structure (anchors, placement, source, etc.) is solid and varied.

Showing your clients the links you've built or are being requested to build is certainly fair and useful; building hundreds of crappy links per month is not.

"Likes" and "Follows" and "+1's"

How we measure ourselves and the value of our content is easy in the world of social media. The more "Likes" my company has or the more "+1's" a post I write gets the more popular and valuable I am, right? Only if you're not focused on the benefits.

Like inbound links, it's easy to get Likes and Follows (heck, you can buy them for pennies-a-piece). Unfortunately it can be a little too easy and I've started off campaigns having to spend days cleaning up social media profiles of "#teamfollowback" and other useless crap.

Social media is about social interaction. To know this is to understand how it will be measured once the engines get the subtleties figured out.

Let's take a look at a real-world scenario. Am I more valuable as a marketer shouting across a crowded and noisy night club, or sitting over a beer discussing business with a handful interested potential or present clients?

It's not the numbers, it's the value. Ask not how many. Ask how engaged.

Unmatched Pairs

Everything is relative. Knowing that your visits are up or down is relevant only if you understand what visitors they are.

For example, if I compare my visitors this month vs last and see a drop should I panic? Perhaps, but what if last month I engaged in a large-scale but unproductive email marketing campaign? What if that campaign brought me tens of thousands of visitors but no conversions and so I didn't repeat it. My traffic is down but is that a bad thing?

For your visitor metrics to be relevant they need to be put in context. So often metrics are passed along that are geared to make the sender look good. I

t's easy to drive visits if you aren't concerned about the quality. Now if you tie visits to search engines or better, to keywords, and show improvements - now the data is relevant.

So What Does Matter?

What matters varies from campaign to campaign, but there is one global truth: the one constant in metrics is ROI. How that is defined depends on the purpose of the site (easiest on an ecommerce site, harder on an information site that's focus is education). Without understanding the value of a visitor (and a value by type of visitor) it's impossible to report properly on metrics that matter.

Marketers and website owners need to not just educate themselves on how metrics work but pause, think about how the various data points connect, how a proper campaign is structured, and make clear what is to be reported and why.

We need to inform people as to which metrics are still relevant (I'm looking at you, green bar). We also need to understand that at times this may include referencing third parties (even competitors you respect) to reinforce what you're saying; remembering it's better to have one educated client than two who aren't.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Web Development Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Mark Jackson

For all the things that have changed in my time in search engine optimization, there remains one constant when it comes to engaging in discussions with a prospect for SEO services.

Most prospects are very keen to know the answer to this one, very basic (but not "simple") question: "How long until I'll see results"?

As with most things in SEO, the question begs another question: how do you measure "results"? As well, the answer has to have the added "it depends" followed by a number of follow-up questions.

Often, prospects are saying things like, "I want to be the top result for X keyword." And, as I've mentioned many times, good SEO doesn't revolve around any "one" ranking for any "one" keyword. If it does, you're probably doing things that you shouldn't be doing, such as overly-aggressive link building tactics against "money" keywords.

But, these same prospects are typically getting quick answers to this - actually very complicated - question.

More often than not, SEO agencies are saying things like "probably 3-6 months," without so much as determining what success/results really are, what the competitive landscape is like, what capabilities the company may have in content development, site structure/redesign, etc. Too many people are providing false hope to these prospects without giving them adequate counsel on determining what "real" success is or how to measure ROI.

SEO Truth

As you may know, Google has been (since their Vince update, and the following Panda/Penguin stuff) trying to rank higher quality ("brand") websites. It's no secret Google favors brands, which is in part due to the fact that Google tries to reflect the real world in its search results by ranking established brands on searches where users would expect to find them.

Additionally, most of these brand websites have a lot of quality websites linking to them. Lots of people are already searching for their brand name. Their social presence is typically strong. They have built a brand over many years. This is very difficult to fake (which is the big reason why Google likes brands) and takes an incredible amount of time and effort to build.

Take a moment and read my ClickZ column from April 2010. Here, I detail some advice that took me "no time" to provide to some top retail ("big brand") websites.

I haven't followed up on this (chances are, with Google's updates, they are seeing better results today than they did back then, even if they didn't change anything). But, if they did actually make some changes, they could see results very quickly - perhaps a matter of weeks. "ROI" would be quick, let there be no doubt.

The awkward issue is that these big brands are also the ones that have the largest budgets. They should be spending $10,000-$20,000 per month (or perhaps more) on a full-fledged, holistic SEO effort. And, I'm satisfied that the SEO firms will earn every penny.

However, big brands don't have to spend as much as smaller businesses who are trying to establish themselves in today's Google results. Smaller businesses are, without question, at a disadvantage.

*Note: All of this is subjective to the competitive nature of the program, and how "success" or "ROI" is ultimately measured.

The Ranking Challenge for Smaller Businesses

Smaller businesses are going to have to work hard on building up those "big brand" signals in order to rank higher in Google's search results. But they are also the ones that probably don't have $10,000 per month to put into a full-fledged SEO initiative.

I'm not suggesting that this is necessarily by design, but Google had to make it more challenging to rank so that they could clean up their search results and maintain their user base/people using Google for search.

But the side benefit to Google is that smaller businesses may have to turn their attention to PPC marketing (paid search, specifically) to ensure a presence in Google.

Larger businesses will, most likely, continue to fund their PPC efforts, as well.

Google wins.

For many smaller businesses, they will have to invest in SEO services, possibly for several months (years?) to build the signals to do well in search. Larger businesses could make a few tweaks and hit a home run in weeks.

That's the truth.

No Easy Answer

Again, this is very dependent upon how "success" is determined and how "ROI" is defined. It's not a simple question. And it doesn't have a simple answer.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written: Peter van der Graaf,

Images shown in regular search result pages are seldom clicked, but offer great marketing opportunities. So how do you get any attention for your name with such a small image and nobody clicking it? This article describes how commercial websites can benefit the most from image search.

Google Image Search

Most search queries in Google image search aren't very competitive. Well ranked images are seldom the result of great SEO and often sheer luck. The basics of image search are however easy.

Using your keyword in the URL/image name, including it in the alt-/title attribute and placing it within keyword rich textual content is often enough for high ranking. Defining ornamental images as CSS backgrounds makes all the remaining img-tags stand out more. Images on well optimized pages with a lot of link value have the highest chance of scoring.

Only the first 4 to 7 images will appear in regular search results and only when your queries show images, so make sure you outrank everything else.

Branding the Image

Generic images for generic keywords don't show that one of the images belongs to you. Adding some big logo to the image would really make it stand out more and the branding value of your logo high within the search results can be enormous.

Regretfully this also means the same images, including the logo, should be present on your website. Because it's probably already clear to your visitor that the image is yours, you probably want to leave the logo from there.

What is more important? Slightly bothering your visitors with an additional logo or getting your name out there through image search?

Overflow Hidden

One method of getting the best of both worlds is by hiding part of the image when it is shown on your website. By using a code like this: <div style="width:150px;height:183px;overflow:hidden;"><img src="iphone-5.jpg" alt="iPhone 5" title="iPhone 5" /></div> you use a slightly smaller container for the image and overflow hidden hides just the bottom part.

This is how the image shows on the website.

This is how it shows in Google results for "iPhone 5" (see third image result)

Measuring Results

The hardest part about image SEO is convincing a website owner to invest in it. Most SEO can be measured in forms of ROI, but branding SEO makes this much harder. Branding SEO should therefore be seen as a form of CPM (like banner advertising) with great targeting potential.

With keyword search volumes from several tools you can calculate the likely amount of impressions before you take any effort. Google Webmaster Tools allows you to see how many impressions, and for which keywords, you really received once you start ranking. Visit the search result pages to see if you stand out of the crowd on them.

SEO PR

Branding isn't the only potential for image search. Images are one of the first striking search results on a result page and they're more effective to evoke emotion. This makes them perfect for regular PR.

Well informed consumers search Google for your products and company reputation. Images outside your own website can be optimized as well.

Image search results offer many possibilities and the competition is still fairly inactive. Become an image SEO expert and benefit from the advantage while you still can.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Ray "Catfish" Comstock

One of the most underappreciated aspects of SEO is the necessary alignment of SEO strategy with social media activity.

If SEO and social media teams work in silos and don't communicate nearly enough, they can't form a well-coordinated, comprehensive marketing plan.

Therefore, it's extremely important that SEO is integrated into social media activity. What follows are some specific tactics that can be used to increase the impact that your social media activities have on SEO performance.

Using Social Media for Link Development

It's no secret that social media has become increasingly important from an SEO standpoint as the engines have incorporated social signals (e.g., likes, shares, views, etc.) into their ranking algorithm. And as Google+ has become integrated into Google search results and Facebook data into Bing, the direct correlation between what happens in social media and what folks see in their search results has become more obvious.

Even though these changes are important, in my opinion, link development is the most important benefit that social media can bring to the SEO table. In the wake of Google's Panda and Penguin updates, using social media to foster relevant link connectivity has never been more important.

Based on the new algorithm changes, old school link development tactics like blog commenting, free directory submissions, article submission to generic article sites, and a number of other low value tactics no longer work as they once did and can even hurt your site.

What does work is marketing strong, authoritative content that underscores your company's expertise or value proposition to the market. For many businesses, the most effective vehicle to market that content is social media.

SEO professionals should be leveraging the activities of their social media team and the relationships that those folks have to acquire relevant links by marketing high value content in a variety of ways.

Aligning Your Blogging for SEO & Social

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to build links and authority in your space if you write consistent high quality material. Not only does this type of content attract links within industry circles, but it also ends up being keyword focused content that tends to rank well for a number of long-tail terms that are relevant to your business model.

One of the most common missed opportunities I see with blogging activities is failure to create relevant internal links from a company's blog to their main website content. Blog posts are an excellent opportunity to create more relevant internal links to relevant content.

Additionally, many people will omit their site's global navigation template from their blog. This is a missed opportunity.

Think about a link being a vote and your global navigation template as being your most important votes to your most important pages. By including your site's main global navigation template on all blog pages you increase the number of votes that you have for your high priority pages. Also, from a user experience standpoint, it's frustrating to arrive at the blog and not be able to quickly and easily go back to the main site content.

Aligning Your Blogging Team for SEO & Social

Because blogging is so important from an SEO standpoint, it makes sense to train your blogging team on SEO best practices and to provide them with a list of your most important keywords along with the preferred landing pages for those keywords are on your site. This way as the team is creating new content and it will have a higher propensity to be well optimized around the keywords you are targeting and any internal links that are created within the blog will complement the rest of your SEO goals. Additionally, you will make it easier for folks to find relevant content on your site.

Blogging can be a very effective link building tool because of the links that social media content attracts. It can also be effective if you participate in guest blogging activities and leverage your relationships to create link opportunities.

As a blogger you should interact with other authoritative blogs in your space, contributing to those conversations with intelligent comments, and developing personal relationships with the people who are influential in your space. These kinds of activities will go a long way in opening up guest blogging opportunities as well as gaining more attention for the content you're writing (thereby attracting more links).

More Ways to Align Your Content Promotion for SEO & Social

Of course social media is more than just blogging. Leveraging sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other community sites is critical from a content marketing standpoint.

One issue I often see with folks who are using these sites to promote content is that they often promote URLs that are different than the preferred landing pages for their most important keywords. They create a new URL (sometimes a new micro-site) to promote a new piece of content rather than update an existing URL that already has some historical link connectivity.

For example, let's consider a fictitious pet store that releases a new coupon code for dog food. It wouldn't be uncommon for this pet store to create a new splash page with the coupon code and then post that new URL to its Twitter and Facebook pages.

However, this pet store would be better served putting the coupon code on their existing dog food page and posting that URL to those sites. That would ensure that the main dog food URL gets some social mentions, and if anyone links to that URL based on the coupon code, those links will have a positive impact on search performance for the dog food page, rather than a standalone coupon page.

Summary

These are just some examples of how aligning SEO and social media efforts can really boost your SEO performance, especially from a link building standpoint.

Make sure that your social media and SEO teams are working together to create a unified digital marketing strategy. Doing so will ensure that you're maximizing the ROI from both channels.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Web Development Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Jiyan Wei

In what has become a meme, CEO Larry Page referred to Google+ as the company's "social spine" in an earnings call earlier this year. As Page explains, the role of Google+ is to connect a host of products across Google's platform.

The "social spine" metaphor not only provides insight into how Google perceives Google+ but also a glimpse into how they view Google as a platform.

If Google+ is the spine, then what is the body?

Traditionalists might respond that it is still all about search: that Google's mission remains "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

However, another perspective, that more carefully considers why Google+ is being pushed so aggressively, may suggest a slight addendum to their initial mission: "To enable engagement by organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful."

To gain some perspective, consider that every day:

• 60 percent of Internet users access a search engine
• 60 percent send or read e-mail
• 50 percent use a social networking site
• 45 percent get news
• 44 percent go online "for fun"
• 35 percent look for information on a hobby or interest
• 34 percent check the weather
• 28 percent look for information about politics
• 28 percent research a product or service
• 28 percent watch a video

Upon initial inspection, you could neatly organize these activities into one of two categories:

• Search-and-retrieval.
• Engagement.

Upon more careful consideration, one might actually perceive that these two processes aren't mutually exclusive for once a user find the answer to their question, there is an ensuing action that normally follows. As Alexander the Great once said, "Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters."

The Heart

Google search is the vital organ that makes the entire body capable of sustaining life. It's the beachhead that makes Google's expansion possible and they have realized a simple truth: that search is social.

Google has become iconic because their original mission suited a pivotal need at the right time: it connected one group of people who exhibited a demand for information with those capable of producing it.

In some ways, Google was almost like a ubiquitous BBS, supporting asynchronous communication on a global scale. As the tools of information production and consumption have evolved, the velocity of Internet mediated communications has increased. To remain competitive, Google has had to expand their view and look at search as a piece of a larger whole.

To better understand how they are doing this, consider the following result set for "general contractor" in "San Francisco":

In this depiction, we see how "the spine" is at work, connecting search with engagement. The key in all this, is Google search itself. As the primary driver of traffic to the platform, it's role has evolved from being the body into being an organ of the body, albeit the most important one.

The Brain

If Google+ is the spine that connects the various parts of the body and Google search is the heart, there must be something that makes sense of it all. The organ that regulates the various functions within the body is the brain, and with Google, this is the underlying big data information system.

The Knowledge Graph helps Google understand the connection between formerly disparate entities. It is what allows Google to understand what engagement module to serve based on the user query.

In the example above, it is what allows Google to abstract an entity from a given result (Swinerton Inc), provide information about its attributes and show related entities. It is what regulates the entire system and makes connection possible.

Oxygen

Oxygen creates the possibility for life to exist and without it, even the most perfectly structured organism would be lifeless and essentially irrelevant. The digital information created by a countless array of individuals, is the oxygen that Google breathes.

As online marketing professionals, we spend every day trying to think about how to conform to meet Google's changing standards but ultimately, we should always remember a simple truth: Google is a service for people and without them, it's just a bunch of lifeless code sitting on a server farm somewhere.

What Does This All Mean?

• Organs in a body are interconnected: Just like a living person, Google is relying on all its organs to work if it is to transcend its roots as "just" a search engine. In a memorable answer to a question on how to most effectively build links, Matt Cutts focuses almost exclusively on sharing and collaboration as the most effective ways to power off-page SEO. For search practitioners, placing your sole focus on search (and neglecting the other organs) becomes a recipe for mediocrity.
• Don't forget about the brain: Google has been focusing on its spine (Google+) quite a bit but don't forget that the brain (its underlying information system) is equally as important. One of the most pivotal organizational components to the Google "body" is the Knowledge Graph, as it will inform Google on how to create an integrated user experience across its product line. Staying informed on how Google is leveraging semantic search will help you get a leg up on your competitors as Google's platform strategy continues to unfold.
• Decide if you're a medical technician or a physician: A medical technician typically has a two-year specialized education and focuses on one specific area of health care. Physicians can go through as many as 15 years of study and training because they need to understand the body in its entirety before focusing on one area. If you approach search as though it is an isolated organ, you can carve out a niche for yourself but you'll never be running the show.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Web Development Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Mark Jackson

Buying into SEO is a difficult process. Without at least a basic understanding of SEO, it's really tough to tell the difference between someone who knows their stuff and someone who talks a great game without backing it up with results.

I've previously written about why I talk folks out of SEO programs, much of the time. But, let's assume that you do want to hire someone (an agency?).

Many companies looking for SEO help - even those with a decent understanding of SEO - try their best to shop around, but they always end up with two simple questions:

• What is this firm going to do for me?
• How much do they cost?

When you're hiring for a particular position in any business, you're looking at that individual's background. You aren't just hiring them based on how much they cost, or what they say that they will (or can) do. You're hiring them based on their resume, their references, and their history of performance.

For some reason, these basic principles get lost for people when they search for an SEO company (or hire an in-house optimizer). By selecting an agency or employee purely on cost, you could be setting yourself up for trouble ahead.

The "What" of SEO

You need to know what the scope of work is when proposals are put together for SEO efforts. That is one reason why creating a SEO request for proposal (RFP) is important.

If you were designing a website, or even building a house, wouldn't you determine the scope of work? So, too, should you determine the scope of work for SEO efforts:

• What needs to be done? 
• What is the competitive landscape? 
• What will the SEO firm do, and what internal resources will you put against the effort? 
• Do you have a blog? Can you create one? 
• Can you add copy to existing web pages? 
• Can you create new pages of content? 
• Who writes the content? 
• Can structural changes be made to your website? 
• Will the SEO firm provide link building? 
• Will social media marketing be part of the project?

The "How" of SEO

After you've developed a scope of work, let's assume that two different firms send proposals that look very similar. It's safe to assume that different SEO firms have a different approach/process to how they work.

• Does the SEO firm have a process that they follow? 
• Is their methodology for link building ethical? That's become even more important after recent Google changes, such as Penguin. 
• Does the SEO firm work to help you enhance your web presence, or are they vague in telling you how they will go about their business? 
• Do they dig into analytics, usability, and conversion rate optimization?

Transparency in SEO is very important. If an unethical individual does something to your site that's against search engine guidelines, you are still the one responsible for your website, and it will be your site that's penalized.

The "Who" of SEO

Let's assume that you're still looking at two similar proposals. It's the individuals working on your SEO who will determine the success of this effort.

This is a major reason why some SEO companies charge $300 per month and others charge $20,000 per month. A recent graduate is going to cost a lot less than a 10-year SEO veteran. That's just a fact. Mind you, there are a number of large agencies that still have junior-level staff doing a lot of the heavy-lifting, so be sure that you're aware of who is doing what.

If you were hiring for any other position in your company, this would make perfect sense to you. For some reason, this is lost when people are "comparison shopping" SEO companies.

Even after considering the "who," it also boils down to how much of that individual's time you can afford. SEO companies are a service-based business. They're selling their time.

Certainly, they will have tools that they pay for (and these costs are shared among the clients), but time is money. And some people's time costs more than other people's time. You should also consider all the time that these seasoned professionals have put into research, reading, studying, attending conferences, and otherwise honing their craft.

The "Who" and "How" are Every Bit as Important as the "What"

If you were to hire a company that was less than ethical (their approach to link building was buying as many links from whatever cheap sources that they could find), or put individuals on your project that had perhaps a handful of SEO efforts under their belt, or work was outsourced to individuals that don't even work for the company that you've hired, that is arguably more important to know than the "what." Keep this in mind as you're going through the challenge of hiring an SEO company or an individual.

Check references, see rankings for yourself (against keywords that "matter"), get information on the individuals that would be working on the efforts, and talk to the company about their process. Think of this in the same manner that you might if you were interviewing an individual for any other position with your company.

You want someone with high integrity, energy, enthusiasm, a likeable personality, and a good approach to business. They should have a solid understanding of the job that you're hiring them for, and a plan for success.

After you've sorted through all of this, the other thing that I highly recommend is to get some case studies.

You can ask these individuals to show work that they've done, describe the types of deliverables that were associated with the efforts and then cross-check their work with a tool like SEMrush, so that you can see the types of exposure their previous/current projects have across various keywords, the "value" of the traffic (SEMrush estimates this by estimating how many clicks they get for various keywords and what it would have - otherwise - cost them to purchase the traffic via AdWords).

If you can take what you see from SEMrush, what you glean from your discussions with the individual/company, and piece that together with what you hear from their references, you'll have a much better sense as to whether you've found the right person/company to assist you with your efforts.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Jennifer Van Iderstyne

Market research to discover what other people in your space are doing is one of the biggest and most valuable areas of SEO.

No matter whether you're launching a new vertical or trying to dominate a small niche, analyzing what your competitors are offering is crucial.

There are ways to make that kind of analysis useful, game changing even, but it's also possible to get hung up on the kinds of sticking points that only inhibit progress.

The Serenity to Accept the Things You Cannot Change

At some point in life, usually as a kid, we're all introduced to a universal concept: life isn't fair. It just isn't.

Why do some people have all the money and most people don't have enough? Well, there are probably some really complicated and intricate socio-economic theories about this, but we can sum it up with: because life isn't fair.

You know what else isn't fair? Google.

Even though we know this, it's still easy to get frustrated by the rampant disparities we see in Google's search results. It's infuriating when a competitor with newer site and an inferior product is outranking you.

It doesn't seem right when someone is ranking better with a backlink profile full of the kinds of links you're trying to take down. It makes you almost homicidal when the other guys are all over the search engine results pages (SERPs) and their pages have about much content as the back of a shampoo bottle.

It's not right. It's not fair. But that's life. And when you're faced with this situation you really have two options: get mad, or get better.

Focusing on the injustice of the situation is going to help you rank better about as much as living in a tent and complaining about the government is going to help you get a better job. In short, it's not.

Instead of occupying a pity party for one, why not fight back?

The Courage to Change the Things You Can

If you know enough to realize that your competitor's tactics are subpar, you already have an advantage. Study their strengths, and learn from their weaknesses. Go all Sun Tzu on 'em.

You can try to copy their strategy for low level links; syndicate some articles if they have them, get directory links, blogs sure. But if you know those aren't future-proof links, and you get them anyway, that's a choice. And if you choose what looked like the path of least resistance, you can't be all that surprised or upset if it takes you somewhere you didn't want to end up.

Or, if you know a competitor has a lot of inferior backlinks, build better ones. Find angles they aren't taking or filter out the one or two legitimate methods that worked for them and use them for yourself.

The key is to know the difference between good and bad links. If you do it this way, you can one-up them. It may not lead to instant results but legitimate links earned by through merit are the future. Yes, you may still have to bear the indignity of watching an unworthy competitor beat you sometimes, but at least you're not taking it lying down.

Content is a big point of contention is SEO.

• Is this enough?
• Is this too much?
• Is it optimized?
• Is it unique?
• Does it convert?
• Is it too thin?
• Is it slightly pudgy with a muffin top?

There are a hundred questions that go into creating good web content. And most of them are healthy to ask. But "Why does my competitor get to rank with such weak content and I don't?" isn't one of them. In fact that question generally just engenders rage and rarely leads to the production of good copy.

Is it inconsistent that all we hear is "create content" but you can easily find examples of top 10 ranking pages that have jack for content on the page. Sure.

Heck, I tried a popular brand of expensive women's shoes to test and, yeah, 3 out of the top 5 had nothing but pictures, product names and prices on their landing pages.

Clearly, there are major inconsistencies and certainly inequities in the SERPs. But being mad at the situation and refusing to do anything differently because of it won't change your results.

When you see high ranking pages that are lacking in content or other attributes, as a merchant or an SEO it can be tough to stomach. Content can be hard to write, and even more tricky to optimize, but most of all it takes time and money and let's not lie, mass content creation is pretty much a pain. But for every single new page of content you're able to churn out, it's a heck of a lot more productive than just asking why you should have to.

Why are some children born into wealth while others are born into poverty? Luck of the draw? Some grand plan? Possibly, but mostly, life isn't fair.

The Wisdom to Know the Difference

We have more information now from Google about what they want and how they think when it comes to ranking than we ever did in the past. And sure there's a whole lot of "do what I say, and ignore what we do" going on (i.e., "Create great content" but they rank plenty of pages without much if any).

It's confusing, it's frustrating, but it's Google's game and we're just playing along because being on their good side tends to equal better sales. But at least the game is more like Texas Hold 'Em than 5 Card Draw. No we don't know all the cards Google is holding, but we know which ones are on the table and with that info we can make good decisions about how to play out the hand.

Google is telling us what they want. Do the rankings fully support that dogma? Not always.

If we choose to ignore what Google has told us they want, and just become bitter because their processes still lag behind their vision, there won't be progress or improvement. And when ideology finally does align with technology some people will be ready, and others will still be stewing on the unfairness of it all.

Healthy competitive analysis provides ideas for ways to be better. Ways to improve marketing, keyword targeting, content quality and diversity and link building tactics among many other insights.

Unhealthy competitive analysis just results in being angry. So turn the anger into active energy. Channel it not just to do better than the other guy in the SERPs, but to offer more value than then him to the online market.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Simon Penson

"I just want to be part of great stories that are told and for them to be relevant." - Zoe Saldana

Before diving into this lengthy post, I want to attempt to sum up with a 10,000 foot view of my thoughts on how link building is changing in light of the Penguin update.

I also want to make clear that this is an opinion-based piece and is designed to promote debate - and motivate people smarter than me to develop this theory, or crush it.

And the theory and core proposition of this post is this: Google is afraid. Afraid that its crown as king of search will be stolen by a new breed of voice-led search engines led by a Wolfram|Alpha-powered Siri.

It's afraid because Siri's partnership with the currently small but semantic-from-the-ground-up Wolfram|Alpha gives them the reach they both need to change the game. And as Wolfram is better at semantic search - the nirvana for search engineers - it is a justifiable fear.

Google's problem in competing in this space is the existing link graph. At present it's muddied with millions of artificial links, created by people to game their old document retrieval algorithm.

Penguin is Google's attempt to begin clearing the waters again and promote links that help it understand those relationships. As a result relevance is now the key to link building and value adding content the currency of it all.

It's a bold statement but below I attempt to explain that reasoning in a little more detail.

Link Building and the Semantic Web

This post came to me a few days ago as I sat in a pub at an informal SEO meet up.

At the next table two guys were discussing why Google is a bit like Madonna. A random conversation if ever there was one, but from it began spawning an idea.

Their argument was that they considered Madonna to be constantly chasing relevancy. The problem, as far as they were concerned, was that, "she was only relevant when she was good in the '80s."

This, it was argued, is the "trap" Google is in danger of falling into. Like a plastic surgery-obsessed star chasing perfection but actually achieving the opposite the search engine is scared of "getting old and irrelevant."

This has been brought into stark contrast by the launch of Siri - a search concierge powered by the aforementioned Wolfram|Alpha search computational knowledge engine.

Penguin is Google's attempt to begin clearing up its "old world" search operation and begin to move it toward a semantic future. A place where relevance is king.

There is therefore a paradigm shift taking place in the way Google works as it attempts to move from its existing method of organizing information based on a document retrieval process to one based on semantics and understanding user intent.

In many ways we're on the cusp of an entirely new world where, rather than managing information, Google manages knowledge (see their recent announcements on the Knowledge Graph as an example of this in action). Instead of matching keywords to documents it wants to match them to concepts.

As a result the days of link building to valueless and irrelevant sites such as directories and networks are over. In its place is a boost for hard earned links from super relevant sites. And as I sift through more and more data I am seeing a correlation between rank-enhancing links and their relevance to the subject document.

To truly answer the question about what these changes really mean however we must dive into more detail around how search engines organize data and why relevance is going to be key moving forwards.

Semantic Data

Search experts have been talking up the "semantic web" for years and no doubt you will have read about how it will "transform the landscape." For those that have not yet had had the pleasure, let's explain the basics of what it really means.

While semantic web has many facets, intrinsically it is about organizing data in a way that helps understand the user intent behind a search query. It makes that process easier by mapping things like the relationship between words and phrases to "entities" (people, places, etc). The word semantics literally means "the study of meaning."

The move to a ranking system based on semantics was never going to be easy. It means dumping, or at least placing less reliance on, the PageRank model that made Google the business it is today.

Apple's Siri has a bit of a head start when it comes to creating usable interfaces and platforms that place semantic data at its heart because it does not have a muddied and artificial link graph to contend with.

In short, the data Apple is using to power their search hasn't been "gamed" and that makes it easier for them to get ahead. They have even created this awesome data visualization project mapping how computable knowledge (as they call it) has evolved throughout the ages. Google is (ominously) but a blip in the timeline.

Google, however, has a hatful of relevant patents that will ensure it has a very big say in how this all plays out.

What is Relevancy in a Search Context?


We all think we understand what being "relevant" really means in a search context, but if we are to understand where Google may be going with it and how it measures relevance we must first dig into some more detail.

First, relevance is defined in a handful of different ways by search engines, generally speaking in the following ways:

1. Topical Relevance: This looks at what a page is "about" and whether it is related to the search phrase.

2. Cognitive Relevance: Where the search engine looks at the quality of information.

3. Situational Relevance: Search engines attempt to understand the motivations behind a search by looking at how the information it retrieves may help or be useful in the decision-making process.

4. Motivational Relevance: This is the relation between the intents, goals, and motivations of a user and what they may need from the search returns.

Already you can see how much goes into the average search in those milliseconds before results are returned.

Of course Google doesn't just look at a document to work out how relevant it is. It takes in hundreds of external relevance signals and the most prominent of those are link-based.

Link Relevance

When looking at the relevance of links it uses several interesting relevancy scores in giving any link a weighting; and this is where things are changing.

Personalization is making links for some more important than they are for others and below we look at a handful of the main "culprits" for the changing way in which relevance works:

1. Personalized Anchor Text Score: A way of measuring the relevance of the document to the user, which gives the anchor text a personalized score which is then combined with the normal document information retrieval score to generate a personalized ranking for the document (it's the basis of personalized rankings).

2. Topic Sensitive PageRank: Is more of a link quality-based algorithm used by Google to scale its ability to personalize search rankings. In other words, they are biasing the PageRank based on what the user is looking for. It makes relevant inbound links very important as having them makes it clear what you're relevant for.

3. Reasonable Surfer Model: Considers the navigational use of a link and places more or less importance on a link based on how it is, or might, be clicked on to navigate to further information. This is where contextual content links can earn extra "power." It also suggests that a link from a H1 might carry more weight as it may be clicked on more.

4. Hilltop Model: A really interesting one as it is relatively old but offers Google a way of re-engineering link weight. Basically it assigns "expert" status to one or more sites or pages around a specific topic and then any page or site that receives a link from that expert source will have a much better chance of ranking for that term. This could be playing a much larger part post-Penguin as Google looks to clear the waters again in link terms and understand what's important from a "brand" perspective.

So what does this tell us? It certainly goes some way to explain how many ways Google is able to alter its algorithms to affect link building and the relative weight or value of inbound links.

It also explains how links pass differing amounts of "juice" based on who is searching or how or what they are searching for.

There is a good reason why it is this particular area that Google is playing with as part of Penguin too and that motivator is its fast moving competitive space.

Apple's virtual assistant presents a very real threat to Google's dominance and most of their fear emanates from the fact that its "engine" is already better at semantic search. That means Wolfram's data is better structured to allow it to understand user intent and piece together related topics and deliver more relevant results.

Take a search for the temperature, for instance. The end game for search is to be able to "know" where you're searching for (so you don't have to type in the place) and then not only deliver that but also results based on what your next searches may be based on a combination of personal data and big data trends.

Understanding the relationship between 40 degrees and the fact that you might be looking for BBQ products or parasols, as an example, is extremely valuable.

Why Does this Affect Marketers?

The problem for Google is that the link graph created by artificial link building practices has "muddied" the waters and so Google is now looking to the link graph to not only help it understand how to rank content via the document retrieval model of old, but also to power its relevance-based semantic model of the future.

This is why relevant links are so valuable. They help the engines better understand relationships in the real sense of the word; how one piece of content is improved by another on a related theme. Search patents are increasingly being used to measure relevance and connections.

Marketers should begin to think about how their business, or client's business can contribute to the Knowledge Graph and ensure that the sites they manage take advantage of the various opportunities now being presented by Schema.

Content Marketing

It doesn't take a rocket scientist either to work out why a content-led approach helps Google improve search; providing further information for its semantic engine and also because great content links to other great content.

The Hilltop model will be important here, helping Google power it's "brand-led" push; handing "expert" status to "brands" and enabling them to rank better then the sites of old that created traffic, visibility and sales based simply on spammy back links.

Becoming a hub of thought leadership and expertise will give out and attract the type of links Google wants and needs - and you'll be rewarded for that effort.

Takeaways

Although this post is intrinsically an opinion piece, it will hopefully provide some understanding of why so many are writing about the importance of content marketing now.

If you take anything away from the post I hope it is this:

• Google is super-motivated to clean up search and kill off non-value adding sites to prevent Siri stealing valuable ad revenues.

• The search giant is in the process of remodeling how it structures and organizes its data. Penguin is just a small part of that process, but expect it to continue so that they can compete in the semantic space.

• To win in the 'new world' you must contribute to the semantic web and add value. Invest in quality content for on and off-site marketing practices.

• Think carefully about what you want to be relevant for and what you link out to, as this will also affect your relevancy. This recent video created by Google sums up where they are taking this nicely. If you want the edited highlights flip to the 11 minutes mark as their engineering director Scott Huffman explains the three main hurdles the company has to get over in order to create the search engine of the future:

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Jasmine Sandler

The rules of search have changed. In fact, they change on a daily basis. But never so dramatically has rank been uprooted since the explosion of social media. Social media sites, especially the power houses of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, have become backlink central for affecting organic search results.

Social media's influence on driving business via the web is expected to surpass search engine optimization (SEO) in 2013, according to eMarketer. Web marketers and PR professionals must pay attention to how social media affects search, and ultimately how it can change the rules of online visibility and (online) brand engagement.

Prior to Facebook's takeover of the online universe (800 million active users today), online visibility in natural search was a sum of several measurable components: SEO site compliance on site structure and meta tags/content, directory link submissions, and qualified and relevant site/blog-linking. In 2010 the game officially changed, with Google's support of social media - author reputation, bookmarking, commenting, as well as a number of other social factors (likes, tweets, retweets, shares, etc.) - as a major factor in how it ranks websites and blogs in its algorithm. Real-time search in Google meant that search was only as valuable as the latest blog post, social share, and comment.

Today, the line is blurring. And this causes some confusion for web marketers. Should they focus on optimizing and driving traffic to their social pages? To their website? Where does their online brand live? How do they communicate their brand value proposition, whether their personal or corporate brand? The good news is that technology has advanced so that web marketers can manage their content and sites through the use of simple and effective blogging tools. Further, those blog tool properties, such as WordPress, support integration of social plug-ins and necessary content for social sharing including video, effective product/service literature, and tagged imagery. And so, marketers can use social and manage their web presence to support online brand consistency.

So how can you use social media to increase your SEO rank and ensure that the rank and ensuing traffic will convert to web business? First, you must create and understand a parallel social media optimization/search engine optimization strategy. All creators of content on your team (copy, social commenting, videos, and imagery) need to be on one brand team. The approach must be holistic. A unified brand message must drive visibility across all content and all channels.

To define a common strategy for execution across standard SEO practices as well as across social media content development and sharing, marketers must rethink keyword development. The questions become less about search visibility vs. obvious competition and more introspective in terms of what the corporate and executive brand mean. Ask your team questions such as: What is our brand value proposition? What do we want our audience to say about us? How will we incent our audience? How will we be leaders? Why will people follow us? Answering these questions will help you to zone in on your top branded, broad-based, and narrow-based keywords.

Once these target keyword phrases have been developed, you will need an actionable task plan to follow and with which to measure effectiveness of your new blended social/SEO strategy. The strategy must contain: content types and frequency, such as a weekly webinar production, and planned outreach per social channel and media (social) buys/ads with effective messaging and resulting goals. Determining success in social affects search visibility such that the quality of the author, relevancy of the topical content, number of followers, number of comments/retweets, and number of shares of blog posts must be considered and followed for search visibility to pull from success in these metrics.

When determining how you will rank in natural search for branded and business-driving keywords, first do the ABCs of SEO work in terms of on-site optimization wherever your online marketing plan calls for conversion. Once that has been completed, rein in your social and search teams to determine your custom strategy and measurable plan. Remember that, just like traditional SEO practices, social media optimization work must be consistent, authentic, managed daily, and measured for success.

See the full story at: www.clickz.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Adam Stetzer

Eleven million business have Facebook pages according to a recent earnings conference call with investors.

Google has stated that about 1 million Places Pages were being claimed per month, putting them at approximately 9 million now, and over 150 million active users as of June 28.

Local SEO, just like those elusive social signals in Google's algorithm, seems to be the next big thing that has taken years to arrive.

It's fascinating that some small businesses are trying their hand at sell directly within Facebook while others resist claiming their local Google, Bing and Yahoo pages entirely. Here are five strong reasons small business owners should embrace local SEO.

Greater Presence

With more real estate given to local results in Google than ever before, sticking to traditional SEO and PPC means losing out on real estate. Put simply, small businesses with well-placed local rankings get more eyeballs. Go for shelf-space.

Authenticity

Many users view local listings in Google+ and Facebook pages as more authentic than traditional organic results. This is due to the map, address verification, customer reviews, images, and videos that accompany a small business page. Trust is at a premium online and this is one avenue where small businesses don't have to fight as hard to earn it.

Mobile

The smartphone is the new yellow pages. Mobile searches as a percentage of total internet traffic gains every month.

Local map listings are excellent for small businesses who want to be found by people on-the-go and with high intent to purchase. Sticking to a traditional SEO strategy may keep you out of the mobile game altogether. Pay attention to the upcoming Apple Maps launch, and make sure you have a mobile-friendly version of your website that's readable on small form-factor devices.

Conversion

Conversion rates for prospects searching on local terms tend to be higher than national terms. Geographic proximity increases the odds that the local searcher will click through and then visit the business. Again, the smartphone is the new yellow pages.

Easy

Local SEO is low-hanging fruit for a small business trying to fight their way online. Start by claiming, verifying and building up your presence in Google+, Bing and Yahoo. Engage the Facebook audience that is already searching or discussing your category in your geography. People love to support local businesses, capitalize on this opportunity. Ask for reviews and direct people to your local pages whenever possible.

Many small business owners are still quite intimidated by online marketing. The rules change quickly and the barriers to entry can appear high. Local SEO is an obvious choice for any small business who wants an easy path online.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Jason Tabeling

Paid and organic search are the peanut butter and chocolate of the digital marketing world. One is good without the other, but when you put them together the combination is incredible. However, many search marketers, and brands today never create that powerful combination (at least on purpose).

For the third year in a row I took a look at a set of keywords to understand how many brands have listings in both paid and organic search. They keyword set has remained the same all three years across the various verticals.

In a year that had a significant amount of search marketing evolution (think Google Panda/Penguin and the Knowledge Graph) the amount of overlap between paid and organic search didn't change much.

PPC/SEO Brand Overlap Ratio Year Over Year Change

The data below looks at what brands appear in the paid and organic space. The key highlights indicate:

• Only consumer travel has consistently increased their overlap for three years in a row. Travel has been a sector that has seen some pressure over the last few years as the economy struggles. It has potentially led to fewer players, as well as a more coordinated strategy.

• Retail took its first drop. We noticed a lot more Google shopping results for this keyword set than ever before. This has a lot to do with the change in Google shopping to paid service, as well as continued proof that brands need to be found in various channels vs. being reliant on a few.

• Overall the amount of brands that appear in both paid and organic search has remained consistent over the past three years around 17 percent.



How To Better Coordinate Your Paid And Organic Programs

1. Create Business Cases that Demonstrate the Combined Impact of Paid & Organic Search
There are countless studies that talk about the increase in brand awareness, and total impact of having both a paid and organic listing.

Don't underestimate the business impact of having both listings when creating the business cases for funding. For example, our data shows that for every 10 keywords in the top 10 total assists go up by 20 percent.



2. Test and Research
Your search query, and analytics reports are great places to find new keywords to bid on, and organically optimize for. Don't think that your keyword list on day one is the final answer. There are opportunities that await you be testing new keywords, and using multiple variants to drive new traffic, and sales.

Test your position for PPC, and measure the total impact on your sales. Maximizing every dollar only comes with a specific test, and measurement plan.

3. Be Available to Consumers Wherever & Whenever
Consumers today are switching from tablets, to desktop, to social media, and search seamlessly. They don't think about if they are using PPC, SEO, or any other form of digital media.

All consumers know is it was there when they were ready to use it. Being available as consumers use more touch points than ever prior to making a decision is a critical thing to remember as you design consumer centric marketing programs.

Summary

Aligning your search strategies between paid and organic may not come easy. However, your consumer - and therefore your business - will benefit.

A coordinated search strategy is just one piece of the puzzle, but having the left hand know what the right is doing makes for a much better strategy.

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Kevin Lee

If you're reading my columns, you probably rely on search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) heavily in your overall online marketing plan. Despite the occasional bout with invalid bot clicks, traffic from the search engine results pages (SERPs) has always been the kind of traffic we love and lust after. Hey, I buy display media (particularly behavioral) and love an "earned media" campaign that's kicking ass within social as much as anyone. But for steady, high-value clicks, nothing rocks like pay-per-click (PPC) search and SEO clicks. Not that we need a pep rally, but other media is being portrayed as sexy and is getting the attention of marketing departments and distracting agencies with "shiny object syndrome." So, here's my list of six reasons why search clicks rock:

1. The humans doing the clicking wanted to click. As a matter of fact, banner click intent was recently measured to be missing in approximately half of banner clicks. The study was conducted and reported by Ted McConnell, VP at the Advertising Research Foundation (and an online industry veteran). The study authors indicated that "Half the clickers told us they were curious, the other half admitted to a mistaken click." In search, we get some mistaken clicks, but I'm confident we don't have a 50 percent mistaken click rate (now, I'm sure Ted will spend another $480 to prove me wrong).

2. Search engines filter bots. The search engines are still imperfect at filtering bots because perfection is impossible, but Google and the rest have had well over a decade to learn how to filter bots. Recently Facebook was again accused of being lax in policing bot activity (a previous lawsuit on invalid clicks is still pending, I believe). This is a fresh complaint.

For most publishers, some if not all of the bot clicks still make it through to your site, but the current consensus is that the search engines do a good job of filtering out invalid clicks for billing purposes. Opinions clearly differ regarding Facebook. Many years ago I served on an IAB working group/committee that strove to define valid clicks (therefore also helping define an invalid click) and the search engines were active participants in that group. Despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, I believe that the search engines wanted to retain a level of trust in their click auctions to keep cost-per-clicks (CPCs) high and marketers interested.

3. Signal and intent. Nothing signals intent better than search. Other forms of media are intrusive or clicks are serendipitous (your friend just announced her purchasing of an iPad via a social media platform and you decided it's time to buy one too). Search clicks are loaded with intent.

4. We get to control the level of intent in the search clicks. Think of all the great ways we can tune intent with keyword match types and negative keywords. We can't perfectly impute buying intent based on "early funnel" vs. "lower funnel" keywords, but we still have amazing control. That control allows us to build landing pages that more accurately address the needs of the visitor. A banner click? Who can guess their intent, even if they clicked on purpose?

5. We can control audience with PPC search. Sure, adCenter still lets you bid boost by age and gender, but Google and Microsoft both let us target based on geography and daypart. Those are great proxies for your audience in ways you probably haven't fully imagined nor taken advantage of. My team and I have been doing some fun work in the area of audience tuning within PPC search, beyond the obvious.

6. Frequency capping is automatic. Display and even PPC social suffers from a lack of easy frequency control, particularly for large campaigns trafficked to larger publishers and ad networks. Sure, a searcher might see your ad more than once, or even click on it more than once, but the search is usually a new one (change in intent), and one certainly wouldn't expect searchers to engage with our listings in a SERP dozens of times a month the same way you see an ad dozens of times a month.

One more bonus reason came to light as I was penning this column. The Wall Street Journal reported that "The Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce Wednesday new rules that close loopholes that currently allow companies to gather information despite a 1998 law that was supposed to protect kids' online footprint." Well, as long as you are following the original COPPA guidelines, it's unlikely these changes will have an impact on search. We expect searchers to search anonymously and when they become customers, we can address regulatory concerns at that time.

I hope you remain as excited about search engine marketing today as I am. The opportunities to refine and improve campaigns are still there. Sure, check out the latest shiny objects, because you never know, one might be the killer app; but stay true to search engine marketing. It may not be as sexy as the new stuff to everyone, but we know and understand the elegance and power SEM holds. Search clicks rock!

See the full story at: www.clickz.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Crispin Sheridan

It's tough not to notice the rather large, relatively new change on the first page of Google's search engine results, and the impact of that change will soon be impossible to ignore, too.

Considering Google is the number one search engine and most visited website in the world, most of us have already realized the change: semantic search results.

Google, which utilizes its unique intelligence index called the "Knowledge Graph" to produce its semantic search results, claims on its official blog that the feature "is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like human brains do." And it probably is. But what does that mean for search engine optimization (SEO)?

First, you need to understand how the Knowledge Graph works and its intention. Google asserts that the Knowledge Graph, which is essentially a collection of databases (Wikipedia, Freebase, Google Local, Google Maps, and Google Shopping), enhances search in three main ways: finding the right thing, getting the best summary, and going deeper and more broadly. To do this, Google formed the Knowledge Graph to not just search keywords, but distinguish how certain combinations of words differ from other combinations containing common keywords, while also considering the human intent by each user.

This is Google's attempt to simplify search and bring results (or, better yet, answers) closer to the surface with fewer clicks. It's about "things, not strings," Google says.

Bing rolled out its own variation of semantic search recently, too, by partnering up with Encyclopedia Britannica to form its Britannica Online Encyclopedia Answers. It's slightly different from Google's version - Bing serves the semantic results directly into the organic results - but both are trying to simplify search.

While both versions remain works in progress, they're also well on their way to achieving what they were created to do: to keep users on the search sites while answering search queries.

Semantic results can be found by simply searching Google for a sports team, famous musician, or monument (among the 500 million-plus people, places, and things currently in the Knowledge Graph). The results on the top-right side of the page, utilizing the Knowledge Graph, offer quick bits of information, as well as the source from which the information is derived.

In the case of Bing, it's a bit different. The number of queries returned via semantic search is much fewer than those returned by Google but, with a more credible database (Britannica vs. Wikipedia) to pull answers from, Bing's semantic search may be an SEO proponent in the future of search.

In the image below, you can see that when searching for "Lincoln Memorial," Google's Knowledge Graph offers a map location, general information, and a picture of the monument, right on the SERP. To the left of that, we see the standard search engine results we've all grown accustomed to.


Bing's semantic results, which are scarcer than Google's, offer limited information and also serve several third-party links that will take you off the SERP for more information. This obviously goes against the idea that semantic search is mainly focused on keeping users on the search site, but also helps uphold the marketing value of SEO for sites delivering the searched information.

In addition to the smaller database of semantic search results and the way they are delivered (see the image below), it must also be highlighted that Bing's semantic results are rarely, if ever, at the top of the page. Google's semantic results are dominant on the top right of the page. Bing's are meshed in with the rest of the organic results, often blending in with the other results on the page if not for the small bits of information listed under the third-party links.


But without users clicking the standard results, websites should certainly see a decrease in visits through search. Obviously, semantic results showing up via Bing offer more chances for third-party sites to earn visits; Google offers less of a chance. So, optimized sites should continue to draw a high volume of visits through Bing.

There's still plenty that is unknown. How will semantic search affect page rank? It would make sense to rank pages used to serve semantic results higher than ones that do not, but who knows how algorithms will treat them. And will there be a way to optimize websites to capitalize on semantic search? There sure should be if search engines start using non-exclusive third-party sites to pull such information. Again, only time will tell.

Simply stated, this change does not seem to have been made with SEO in mind; most changes rarely are - they are primarily for the benefit of the user. But, while trying to improve usability by simplifying search, there will still be ways to optimize websites and ensure quality content is ranked higher than low-quality sites, something upon which Google and most search engines continue to pride themselves.

See the full story at: www.clickz.com

For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Mark Jackson

When I started my professional career (selling advertising), one of the most influential books that I read at the time was "7 Habits of Highly Effective People", by Stephen Covey.

It's not much of an over-statement to say that this book changed my life.

What's interesting to me is how many of the tenets that Mr. Covey conveyed in this book hold true in many facets of my life, and specifically with digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).

I speak to many prospects for SEO services, every day. Some of these believe that SEO is a one-and-done affair.

While I find instances where companies could see some solid gains by simply implementing proper title tags and correcting a few things, more often than not, proper SEO efforts need to be worked on a regular basis to realize the types of gains that can deliver really solid, long-lasting and "optimized" (optimal) results.

Every SEO company will have its own processes for performing SEO, and I'm not suggesting that what follows covers everything that goes into an ongoing SEO effort, but the key ingredients are here.

*Note: items in italics come directly from Stephen Covey's website.

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control, proactive people focus their time and energy on things they can control. The problems, challenges, and opportunities we face fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

Proactive people focus their efforts on their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about: health, children, problems at work. Reactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern--things over which they have little or no control: the national debt, terrorism, the weather. Gaining an awareness of the areas in which we expend our energies in is a giant step in becoming proactive.

In our world, being proactive means you can't chase an algorithm.

What we can focus on are those things that we can control, which is develop a sound web presence that the search engines "should want to" rank - one that:

• Presents a quality user experience.

• Has quality/resourceful/unique content.

• Has earned links through methods that most would call "good marketing".

There are many things that are within our circle of influence, such as:

• Selecting the right keywords to target.

• Building quality websites.

• Making sure that content is crawlable/indexable.

• Developing sitemaps.

• Maintaining clean code.

• Promoting content.

• Distributing press releases.

While we must be aware, and understand, things like Google Panda/Penguin and other major changes in the algorithms, if we focus on doing "good marketing", all other things should fall in line, and major algorithm changes shouldn't be a concern.

You want to try to build a company's web presence that the search engines should want to rank. Perhaps, that way, you aren't reacting to algorithms but actually working "ahead" of any algorithm changes.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

So, what do you want to be when you grow up? That question may appear a little trite, but think about it for a moment. Are you--right now--who you want to be, what you dreamed you'd be, doing what you always wanted to do? Be honest. Sometimes people find themselves achieving victories that are empty--successes that have come at the expense of things that were far more valuable to them. If your ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step you take gets you to the wrong place faster.

Habit 2 is based on imagination--the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. Begin with the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.

I have often asked prospects this very question ("What do you want to be when you grow up?"). Without knowing where you'd like to be, how do you get there? What are the goals?

When I hear "I want to rank for this one specific keyword", I am very inclined to elect not to work with that company. I'm not about "empty" success.

When I hear "we'd like to grow sales by X" or "we'd like to grow traffic by Y," then I know that there is potential in an ongoing relationship.

Once we've determined that there may be a fit, it is the responsibility of any good SEO to lay out a plan based upon the end goals, and begin the process of developing the necessary steps to achieve the end goal.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

To live a more balanced existence, you have to recognize that not doing everything that comes along is okay. There's no need to overextend yourself. All it takes is realizing that it's all right to say no when necessary and then focus on your highest priorities.

Habit 1 says, "You're in charge. You're the creator." Being proactive is about choice. Habit 2 is the first, or mental, creation. Beginning with the End in Mind is about vision. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation. This habit is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment-by-moment. It deals with many of the questions addressed in the field of time management. But that's not all it's about. Habit 3 is about life management as well--your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. What are "first things?" First things are those things you, personally, find of most worth. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities you established in Habit 2.

Often, when performing a competitive analysis, we find websites that are quite successful (getting a lot of quality organic search traffic for keywords that we'd like to target). When we can identify those top competitors and uncover the reasons why they are successful, we can reverse engineer their success and build a program based upon "best practices".

When you compare the reasons why a competitor may have more success than you, you can begin to develop a program based upon address those "holes" (deficiencies) and scope out a project plan, accordingly.

If you're like most, you may not have an unlimited budget and you'll need to prioritize your efforts. For some, link building may be the most glaring need. For others, a lack of content to support ranking for keywords in the issue.

However you go about getting to the end goal, you must understand the end goal - first - in order to understand the prioritization of steps necessary to be successful.

For SEO programs, most agree upon a common "hierarchy of needs". As a general rule, this is a good illustration of those (SEO) needs:


Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!

A person or organization that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits:

• Integrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments

• Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others

• Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone From an industry standpoint, someone who has done a tremendous job in understanding this "habit" very well is Rand Fishkin.

From my recollection, Fishkin was the first person to take his "corporate website" and turn it (largely) into a blog.

Fishkin then proceeded to "give away" his IP (Intellectual Property). Anything that he knew, or thought, or whatever was posted for the community at large to read, disseminate, comment and - yes - share (links).

I don't know when that was, but it seemed very early (Rand, if you read this, I'd love for you to comment). Fishkin understood something that took me a while to wrap my head around: the more you give, the more you get. This has been the foundation of my advice for folks getting into social media, and it's something that I can now demonstrate results from, myself.

My company's website has earned most of its links through our blog. We try to write helpful, interesting posts and we promote those posts. Sometimes, we earn some pretty significant/"good" links.

I've also been writing for Search Engine Watch and/or Clickz for a little over 5 years now, and have been a speaker at industry conferences for a little over 6 years. "Giving away" content is a good thing (I've earned speaking engagements, new business and - yes - some links, because of these efforts). You get rewarded, if not immediately.

Convincing companies (clients, in my case) that they, too, need to consider this can be a challenge. But, if you step forward with proving helpful/resourceful content (even if your competitors are reading it), you position yourself as a thought-leader and can win "on the back end."

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Communication is the most important skill in life. You spend years learning how to read and write, and years learning how to speak. But what about listening? What training have you had that enables you to listen so you really, deeply understand another human being? Probably none, right?

If you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely.

Without understanding this principle, you may try to target keywords that you think everyone should be searching for, rather than doing the research to see how people actually search for your products and/or services.

How many SEOs out there have worked with companies that are clearly determined to push forward on their way of describing their products/services, even though research shows that no one is searching in that manner? I refer to this as CEO-itis. That is, the CEO has his vernacular and is very determined to have a website full of fluff content rather than crafting content to be more in line with reality.

When you listen first, and then understand, you have a much better chance at success. The same can be said about success social media marketing efforts.

Habit 6: Synergize

To put it simply, synergy means "two heads are better than one." Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn't just happen on its own. It's a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results that they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves. It is the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One plus one equals three, or six, or sixty--you name it.

A proper SEO effort is one in which PPC works with SEO, PR works with SEO, social marketing works with SEO, copywriting works with SEO, video/image teams work with SEO, web design/development teams work with SEO, and IT teams work with SEO.

Getting this synergy in place can lead to beautiful results. However, if synergy isn't in place, you can't expect to realize optimal results.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Sharpen the Saw keeps you fresh so you can continue to practice the other six habits. You increase your capacity to produce and handle the challenges around you. Without this renewal, the body becomes weak, the mind mechanical, the emotions raw, the spirit insensitive, and the person selfish.

SEO, when done well, isn't a one-and-done affair. Optimization of results, via analytics review/analysis, usability reviews, on-going tweaking/refining of on-page/off-page SEO and conversion optimization lead to better and better results, over time.

You must sharpen the saw and always consider how things can be better. Certainly, new and interesting opportunities present themselves all the time.

If you had "completed" an SEO effort several years ago, you might not have been taking advantage of "new" opportunities such as local, news SEO, video SEO, shopping feed optimization or even blogging/social promotion.

Things change, and we must always look for ways to be better at our craft and seek out new/interesting opportunities for advancement of the SEO efforts.

Footnote

I need to provide a shout-out to Neil Patel for this particular column. While the idea for this column was 100 percent mine, I did a search and found that he had written a similar post (that I encourage you to read) titled "7 Habits of Highly Effective SEOs".

See the full story at: searchenginewatch.com
For more information about Internet Marketing Company and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com

Written by: Sage Lewis

SEO is getting harder and harder.

If I was using search engine optimization as a key component of my marketing today - which I am - I would make damn sure I know how to track success.

Because SEO is harder, it's also more expensive than ever.

If you plan to use cheap links and content outsourced to third-world countries, you are living in a fantasy world of search engine optimization.

There are many ways to measure SEO but using ranking reports is not one way.

Have you looked at Google recently? With video results, image results, and social results all being injected into the search engine results pages (SERPs), how are you going to judge success based on a ranking report?

In the last 30 days, here are my rankings (with clicks) for the phrase "google plus local" from Google Webmaster Tools:



Which position would you show your boss?

I'm fairly confident that I am somewhere between position 1 and 10 (except when I'm on page 2 or 3).

Look, I still run these reports. Old habits die hard. But I do really wish they would die. Positioning reports are meaningless, ego-driven search babble.

You Want Results!

You aren't trying to rank well for your health. You are trying to get some sort of action. The action is what you need to be tracking. Ranking is just a means to an end.

The end results could be things like getting people to:

• Engage with your site.
• Sign up for your newsletter.
• Buy something.
• Fill out your online form.
• Call you.

You get the idea, right? Track the thing you want them to do.

Here are five ways to measure SEO.

No. 1: Segment, filter, and compare.

Google Analytics is your friend when it comes to measuring success.

Get comfortable with segmenting your traffic using the built-in advanced segmenting reports in Google Analytics. First, segment on your "non-paid search traffic."


Then compare your non-paid search traffic with another time period. My favorite time comparison is year-over-year. That way you are filtering out seasonality. If your stats don't go back a full year, then compare what you can. This month compared to last month is better than nothing.

Finally, filter out as much of your branded phrases as possible. Anybody can rank for their company name (with various key phrases attached to it) and product names. Use the filter tool to get rid of all that branded stuff when you are in the "Search/Organic" area of Google Analytics. Like this:


This report is going to do wonders at telling you what you need to know. You will get a valuable snapshot of how you are doing overall for non-branded organic search.


No. 2: Hang out at Google Webmaster Tools.

I love this information. It's crazy fun. What you are interested in is currently under "Traffic/Search Queries."

You can also create a filter here to exclude branded phrases and you can also star phrases so you can easily come back to those.


This data shows you impressions and clicks in interesting ways. Unfortunately, you can't compare search query data to another time period in Google Webmaster Tools. But that leads me to:

No. 3: Integrate Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics data.

Use the "Search Engine Optimization" data by linking your Webmaster Tools data into your Google Analytics data.

That in itself is something I see very few companies having done before they come to us. The data is useful and special. You definitely want to link this data together.

But if you have already done that, perhaps you haven't used the explorer tool within this tool:


You can find this report by clicking on the three-circle icon on the right side of the screen after selecting "Queries" within the "Search Engine Optimization" section of Google Analytics.

You can slice and dice this data in all kinds of visually telling ways. There is a "play" button that lets you watch your top key phrases dynamically move in average ranking, impressions, or clicks over a specific time period. This is an interesting comparison within itself. It also lets you appreciate the fluidity of rankings for particular phrases.

No. 4: Use goals within Google Analytics.

Hopefully by now you have inserted some goals into Google Analytics. You probably are looking at things like how many people have filled out a form, using events to track downloads of PDF files, and more. But how closely are you looking at your goals from a segmented perspective?

The easiest way to do that is with the "Goal Flow" report

Within the Goal Flow report, you can segment your traffic by non-paid search traffic and then you can look at that traffic by keyword.

It gives a really interesting comparison when you look at the data from one period of time compared to another period of time.

No. 5: Show the big picture.

Executives don't want to micromanage SEO. They want to see the big picture: Is SEO working for us?

For this kind of report I recommend a simple high-level custom report that shows all organic visits, comparing one time period to another time period. And then showing total goal completions and goal values. You want to give each type of goal a monetary value because not all goals are created equal. The report will look like this:

This shows organic results across a wide array of search engines.

If your numbers are going up, you should be able to show your CEO this and that will be that.

I have worked my butt off this year for creating good keyword-rich content on our site. This report shows the results. No positioning report needed. Who cares what the rankings are? What I'm doing is working.

See the full story at: www.clickz.com

For more information about Seo firm and Seo services, just visit us at www.7strategy.com