Google Takes Another Bite Out of SEO: First Links and Now Keywords

For search engine marketers — and the companies who depend on them — things just got a little tougher. SEO companies, most still reeling from the impact of Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, aren’t going to like what the CEO of LinkSmart reported in Forbes on Jan. 22.

It’s not just links that are taking a hit from Google — now keywords are in trouble too, according to Pete Sheinbaum, who was the CEO of Daily Candy before taking the helm at LinkSmart. Google put an end to the easy acquisition of links, which for more than a decade had been essential to search engine rankings.

Links remain important, but their overall value has diminished. Worse for SEO specialists, quality links have to be earned. Google stripped sites of many links they deemed forced, purchased or otherwise tainted and now makes it harder for sites to gain links. Content marketing and social media marketing are usurping SEO’s dominance in link-building as Google now rates links based on perceived value — a link from an article published in a high-authority magazine or shared on Twitter — gets more Google love than links from ezines and directories.

Google Shields Search Results Data

And now, Sheinbaum says in Forbes, keywords are also losing their importance in marketing.

Google isn’t discounting keywords as it did links. But it’s making it harder for websites and advertisers to know what keywords drive traffic. Google is keeping much of that information to itself and may become increasingly stingy about releasing it in the future, Sheinbaum says.
If, for example, your marketing strategy revolves around keywords such as “how to make money online,” you may be paying a search engine company to put those keywords in anchor text and spending money on pay-per-click advertising based on the phrase “how to make money online.”

Google is not stopping you from spending money this way, but the company is making it harder to track results. You may not know if someone visited your site because of the keywords or because of some random reason.

What happened? Google used to freely pass along reports about keywords. But for any site that uses Google analytics — and about 57 percent do, according to study by Optify — Google keeps this information private. This is good for Google — it acquires information for its own advertising purposes — but bad for other companies who sell advertising based on traffic and keywords.

This means that marketers and advertisers are going to have a harder time analyzing traffic on their websites — and justifying their rates to website owners. Owners who want to get the most out of their marketing dollars — and SEO companies who want to keep earning their fees — will have to look beyond raw data and try to look deeper into the meaning of traffic rises and dips.

If traffic rises on a Tuesday, falls two days later and picks up five days after that, simple data will no longer provide the reason. It will be necessary to examine what changed on Tuesday — content was published on a high-authority site or a new ad campaign launch — what happened in the four days of slower traffic and on the fifth when traffic picked up.

New Strategies Needed

Todd Mumford , CEO of SEO Visions, says the information in the Forbes article should not alarm search engine specialists. For one thing, he says, Google started shielding keyword information months ago and savvy online marketers and company owners are already employing new strategies to test the strength of campaigns.

Mumford, interviewed for this article, cited three key ways to analyze traffic data despite Google’s attempts to keep the information to itself:

1. Google Webmaster Tools

These tools allow website owners to see statistics on daily average traffic, prominent search queries, ranking position and other statistics.

These tools do not, however, always provide accurate results. Google webmaster tools reports, for example that DavidAndersonWealth.com ranks at position 81 in the US, but it has rested in position 33 to 38 for several weeks.

2. Site Search

This tool helps owners and markets understand keywords relevant to a customer buy cycle — you can find out what keywords customers click on (or ignore) when they’re on your site and adjust accordingly. Mumford says websites can synchronize site search with Google to help synch up their data with Google’s.

3. Site Surveys

Mumford says site surveys can be a very effective way to collect data provided your website has a decent amount of daily traffic. Such surveys can be more valuable than Google analytics, he says, because they do a better job of capturing user intent. Questions, ratings and comments on your site tell you more about your customers — and how to market to them — than the keywords they click on.

When you understand your customers, you can match keywords to their intent without Google’s help. If, for example, your site visitors click more frequently on words such as “lose weight now” than “get healthy,” you can build your content and marketing accordingly.

Bottom Line

Traffic analysis requires more nuance — and more guessing — and companies may make more missteps than they’re used to until their tracking skills become better refined.

Google is growing up and forcing website owners and online marketers to grow up, too.

5 Must-Have SEO Skills

What kind of skills do search engine optimizers need to succeed in today’s marketplace? Should SEOs be siloed into doing just SEO and close themselves out from other marketing skills? Or should the new kind of SEO should be jack of all trades and also the master of all trades?

The modern day SEO should be an integrated SEO digital marketer – one who knows about on-page SEO and other integrated tactics.

Whether you're considering working in the SEO industry, or you're looking to hire an SEO, there are five must-have SEO skills. Let’s run through these five skills one by one and discuss why they are important.

Technical SEO

If you think SEO is all about keyword research and then wordsmithing (think stuffing) them on a page, then you’re in for a surprise. That’s not what it’s all about.

SEO is about making websites better at both the page and server level in a structured way to enhance their chances of being found on search engines, with the eventual goal of generating traffic and conversion.

Yes, knowing on-page optimization (e.g., title tags, alt tags, H1, copy optimization) is helpful but it's more critical to understand the technical side of SEO, such as code. You can win your IT battles easily if you’re well-versed with technical SEO.

Go ahead and learn everything related to technical SEO, including server-side settings, sitemaps, server response codes, rewrites, and more.

Understanding both page-level optimization and server-level optimization is what makes a rounded SEO practitioner.

Social Media Marketing

Does a day go by when you don't hear about social media? Not in this wired world.

Social media skills shouldn't be limited to maintaining accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, but actually driving traffic from social sites. Traffic generating exercises that can help you develop into a well-rounded SEO include creating fan acquisition strategies, working on building Twitter followers, and optimizing videos on YouTube.

Yes, leveraging social media tactics for link building is critical, but the modern SEO needs to generate traffic and acquire customers through social media. Increasingly, we're seeing synergies between SEO and social media and this integration is only increasing. I had also written about ways SEO can start working with social media managers here.

Create an action plan around this skill and start working on it today.

Link Building

With the rise in social media platforms over the past few years the opportunities to build links has increased tremendously.

Now we have traditional (legitimate) ways of building links like good old-fashioned directories, association sites, credible high PR sites, and so on. These links are also known as permanent links with a longer “shelf life” than say temporal type of links acquired through social media channels (e.g., content syndication, blogs, Twitter, bookmarking).

The other side is internal link optimization – not just on your own properties but also on social media platforms such as your Facebook page. With so much content created by your internal social media team, internal link optimization could be the low-hanging fruit you want to go after.

It's critical for SEOs to be skilled in both external link building and internal link optimization.

Usability & Information Architecture

SEOs should value the importance of good site usability. Site usability implies how your objects are placed on your page and if the information you provide on your site is useful for the users and if your site is easy to use and navigate.

Learning about information architecture is critical as well since it’s all about how you organize content on your site, decide on your folder structure, and how you label elements on your site. This is often an area where SEOs make mistakes especially when they take a keyword approach to IA.

Again, as competition increases and attention span of users decreases, it's important to not let your visitors drop off your site.

This skill is critical for SEOs to learn and make that part of their arsenal. Good resources to learn on this topic is Peter Morville’s Information Architecture for the Modern Web and my interview with Shari Thurow on information architecture and SEO

Content Marketing

Content is really what engages users and is a great way to get visitors into your marketing funnel, so it's essential as an SEO you possess this skill. Content marketing can be divided into two main tasks: content creation and content distribution.

An SEO need to be well versed with both pieces of content marketing strategy, especially content creation. You may come across situations when there will be lots of excitement in your company to create content – from bizarre content creation ideas ("Let’s create 1 million new pages!") to ideas that have keyword stuffing written all over it.

As an SEO, it's your job to act as a gatekeeper and support content ideas that can add value to search engines and users. Basic skills like keyword research, finding content gaps, and distributing your content will come in handy.

COMPLETE SEO LINK BUILDING SERVICE

SEO TIPS: Social Isn’t Just for Mommy Bloggers

What are you doing to bring in traffic to your site? Are you going the PPC route? Are you crossing your fingers and hoping that your site will be found based on nothing more than how awesome you are sure it is?  Are you sitting around relying on SEO alone to deliver you traffic? PPC and SEO certainly do help – but thinking happy thoughts is not the key to making it.

Maybe you’ve added a blog to help draw some more traffic and provide some strong backlinks. That is certainly going to be helpful, but is that enough? Are you satisfied with the routine tactics alone to deliver you everything you need to reach your maximum potential in the SERPs and build up more conversions? The odds are that you’re willing to do whatever is needed to get ahead, aside from black hat tactics, and to that end there is a way to take things to the next level.

The main reason we suggest social media is that it holds a huge advantage over mass marketing or even television or Google AdWords ads because people TELL you upfront what they are interested in and you can quickly target and build a following of people directly interested in your niche! There is very little guesswork in operating this way. It isn’t a blind email blast or some form of ad that is going to make you look spammy – it is giving people what they ask for. That is how you build a solid presence and reputation online.

Getting social share, bookmarking and a number of factors come into play once you start getting the word out there. They all have a particular value. What they all share is that it is people who liked your content interacting with it and sharing it with their friends who may also want to interact with it. Think of it like a grassroots movement. A good piece of content, like an idea, being spread from one person to the next. The better it is, the more it is spread. This is why social media is so powerful – it potentially harnesses millions to spread the word – just as happened with PSY and his Gangam Dance video with over 1.2 billion, yes billion with a B, views to date.

Also, don’t overlook asking friends for help. Even if you don’t blog or socialize online, but have a friend who texts tweets from her Blackberry, ask for a little social media love. Don’t be too timid to reach out – they will likely be more than happen to give you hand. Let an enthusiast help you out. If needed, hire a professional SEO /SEM firm – most of the best ones now offer social media as part of their marketing approach as well as for SEO. If you have a viable product to offer, this is a good route to take. Let them help build your network and run the show. Social media is not an option, don’t treat it like one. Your competition takes it seriously and leverages it so you should as well.

Why SEO Is Important for All Web Developers

For many developers, the arrival of SEO has been looked upon as a minor business practice instead of something to be dramatically implemented in all web page markup. In some cases, this is completely understandable, since there are other means to drive traffic to a website. However, it is traffic-driven mindset that leaves most developers and web designers with a bad taste in their mouth.

SEO isn't just a grey hat tool with the purpose to drive in new customers. More often then not, this is the case, though It's also a useful tool to organize and index your pages for other reasons that are often ignored by freshly hired web developers. Say a developer is hired by a none-profit to design and assemble a database that searches and organizes medical conditions by typical patient symptoms. More often then not, this sites developer will likely ignore this sites SEO potential simply because their is no drive for profits or to bring in any sort of business. This is exactly the mindset that the majority of developers need to stay clear of.

The SEO potential for such a medical database could drive in hundreds of thousands of impressions per month, thus pushing such a site into unforeseen directions that are out of the scope of the web developer. Regardless of this sites own business practices, there is ultimate potential for patients to discover their own health issues from basic search terms that point to a broad and open database of knowledge. This is, ultimately, the goal of such a site, and it's own developer could easily to more harm by ignoring the goal and the impact of SEO.

It is still important to maintain the fact that SEO is a fantastic tool for marketing purposes. Many businesses are finding that their customers are using search engines to find what they want, instead of phone books or directory listings. Still, it's important to drive a clear focus to web designers and web developers who all seem to be the last one's on board for optimization. If your site is a resource, by all means, you should attempt basic optimization and push your developer to add the basic features that set your site up for better listings.

The following are basic tasks that will help your sites SEO, and should be implemented by developers regardless. It's just good, clean practice.

- All anchor tags should have a proper title attribute. Ex:

<a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://YourSite.com">Your Sites Title</a>

- All image tags should have a proper alt attribute. Ex:

<img src="http://YourSite.com/image.jpg" alt="This is the image context" />

- Your page should have a clear and descriptive Title

- Lastly, add a Sitemap.xml file to your sites directory.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6463707

Online SEO Article Writing Work

More and more people are starting to look for online work to either supplement their income or to become their main source of income. Writing SEO articles is one form of generating an income online. The SEO industry is a fast growing one and this means that there is an increasing demand for article writers.

You can easily find work online writing SEO articles by approaching different companies. They often use freelance writers in this capacity and some SEO companies would be willing to give first-time writers the opportunity to work for them.

About SEO Articles

SEO articles are written using specific topics and unique keywords or keyword combinations given to you by the SEO companies for which you write. Articles range from 150 words to 1000 words in length and payment works in relation to this.

The articles are used on the websites of clients serviced by the SEO companies to further assist search engines like Google and Yahoo to find these websites a lot easier. This form of marketing is used to increase the amount of traffic experienced by a website and improve brand visibility and customer acquisition.

It is important that the SEO articles you write adhere to the guidelines of the company you write for and that they are always coherent and free of grammatical and spelling errors. This will ensure a good relationship with SEO companies and you will thus be able to maintain a steady workflow.

The more times a given keyword or keyword combination appears in an SEO article, the stronger the article will be. This means that the chances of getting better results in terms of improving a website's relevance in online searches will increase exponentially. Understanding how the process of SEO works will make writing articles a lot easier.

Finding SEO Companies

You can find SEO companies by conducting a simple search using a trusted search engine like Google or Yahoo. Try to write for at least two different companies so that if work from one company slows down it will not affect your income too much.

SEO companies will often request that you submit a sample of your writing in order for them to assess your writing ability. Be sure to present well-written work at all times as this will determine whether you find more work writing SEO articles.

It is important that you confirm whether the SEO company you wish to write for is reputable. There are many companies online that are not legitimate and scam people out of money or companies that pay below the standard rate. Understanding the SEO industry and the standard rate for freelance SEO article writers will make this process easier.

Investigate what the industry standard is for payment regarding writing SEO articles and use that as a baseline when researching different SEO companies. This way you will be able to tell the legitimate companies apart from the posers and don't end up wasting your valuable time.  Complete Seo Services