Seo Blog AZ | Seomoz Blog A-Z | The Daily SEO Blog: May 2011

May 25, 2011

Convincing a Start-up They Need SEO

This entry was written by one of our members and submitted to our YOUmoz section. The author's views below are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

Hi there,
This is my first YOUmoz post, so please bear with me. Also, I'm based in the UK, so I'm aware my experience may not be that of people in the USA, for example. Do feel free to correct or add to this post, that's how I and others learn. :)
However, this topic is close to my heart and I'm experiencing this issue more and more - how to best help start-ups and especially small start-ups.
Premise One: Most start-ups don't seem to have funds
This is a huge issue for someone starting out in their own business. Clients that come to me often want to jump straight in and ask 'how much is this SEO stuff going to cost me?' I urge you don't answer this right away, but always bear in mind that new businesses may not have huge marketing budgets, but that you cannot offer your services for free.
Therefore, over the course of your prospect meeting or your first strategy meeting with your new client, you must gauge where they are at first in order to offer them a proposal that will assist them but not bust their bank account. Your role is to help them grow their business not to bleed it dry.
Premise Two: Keep It Simple
I have a client who is a sole trader - a consultant in the alternative medicine field. She really knows all about her area of expertise and how to treat different conditions. I don't know about these things.
Likewise you may know about web design, user engagement, data structure, link metrics (and so on) and your client may not. Occasionally you will get clients who are more clued-in on the basic principles of SEO, but for the most part they don't.
So it is important if you are to win the client or to gain more business from the client to keep it simple. Use terms the client will understand:

In-coming links: 'links to your site from other sites'
Anchor text: 'what text those other sites use when linking to you'
Authority: 'how important search engines think your site is'
On-page optimisation: 'making changes to your site so that people and search engines understand the page's content'

And of course the list goes on - but speak to them in their language and don't overwhelm them with data. What they care about is new business or providing more services to existing customers, so speak to them about these things.
Premise Three: Don't Do Everything At Once
Your services need to grow with their business.
Starting a new business is daunting enough, especially for a sole trader, a new small company or partnership. Don't overwhelm them with the many aspects of SEO.
Come up with a plan so that your support for the client is clearly structured and divided into bite-size stages. It's no good saying in your first meeting that you need to tackle the on-page optimisation, link building, guest blogging, tweeting, posting to Facebook, Stumbling etc. They already have enough on their plate!
What I'm not saying is ignore these things. Explain their importance but structure their SEO strategy - and remember that if it's gradually built up, it will appear more 'natural' which of course is much better received by search engines than an unsustained sudden boost.
Premise Four: Report Back the Results
Because new businesses have limited funds they want to see ROI - even if initially they see that in terms of search rankings or the number of visitors to their website. This is how they will judge your services. So report regularly to them - most of our clients want monthly reports, which is a reasonable expectation in my personal experience. But again don't flood them with stats. Key issues are likely to be:-

Search engine rankings (especially Google) for the keywords you have helped them choose and maybe one or two they would like.
How many visitors they've had to their website
How many new visitors they've had
How many other websites are providing traffic.
If it's an ecommerce website, track revenue in Google Analytics - ROI in terms of sales is always a great selling point for your services.
If a client's goal is enquiries via e-mail, ensure those are also tracked.
And anything else that you think the client will understand and appreciate. And each client is different in this respect.

Final Premise: Enjoy and Don't Apply Pressure
Working on a new client's new business SEO should be a great experience for you both - build the client relationship so that you have repeat business, a better understanding of your client as a person and a business. Don't pressurise your client or prospect into taking your £1,000 package if the £50 package is appropriate.
And vitally - a happy client is likely to be a referring client, so build on the above principles and enjoy the ride.
Thanks for your attention folks!

Everyone Should Hire 'Social Media Experts'

I caught a post this week from Peter Shankman entitled "I Will Never Hire a Social Media Expert and Neither Should You." It's not the first of its kind, nor was it the best argued, but it struck a nerve and has made a number of waves around the web. Needless to say, as someone who employs multiple team members with a great deal of social media expertise, I strongly disagree with the substance and sentiment of the piece.
Here's Peter's argument in his own words:

No business in the world should want a “Social Media Expert” on their team. They shouldn’t want a guru, rock-star, or savant, either. If you have a “Social Media Expert” on your payroll, you’re wasting your money.

Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator. You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.

The full piece makes a passionate case, but an entirely false one. There's no evidence, only opinion; no examples, just speculation; no data, but loads of stereotyping. The author is certainly one of the premier benefactors of social traffic and of a new, more socially-connected web (Mr. Shankman founded and sold HARO, the service that connects journalists to subject-matter experts), yet he somehow manages to ignore the benefits social media has brought him (and his clients/company) to write a scathing dressing-down of anyone who dares claim expertise in this marketing discipline.
As with my arguments against Mr. Roadruck last month, I'm worried that I'm falling for trollbait again. But, the people who do great social media marketing deserve a strong defense, and I believe the evidence is almost entirely in their favor. Besides that, as an SEO, I've long felt the brunt of baseless attacks by ignorant skeptics. I feel both a kinship and a duty to stand up for those who've had their profession ridiculed.
Let's start by exploring the popularity of social media experts in comparison to another job role Mr. Shankman pointed out, traffic planners:

Social Media Expert, Traffic Planner trends

Social Media Expert jobs | Traffic Planner jobs

As you can see, there's a dramatic rise in interest and demand for social media folks. I don't think this is because companies are "wasting their money." In the current economic climate, corporate profits are at record levels and companies are hiring with a much greater eye to the bottom line than any other time in the past 20 years. These businesses are investing in high ROI projects + people, and social media is part of that.
The primary point Mr. Shankman appears to make is that social media skills and expertise are merely "common sense" that every marketing professional/department already has. Thus, there's no need to specialists or experts to assist in understanding the tools, opportunities or nuances of the field.
I beg to differ.
Product, marketing, engineering and customer service departments can all benefit from greater knowledge and understanding of social media, and very little of it is common sense. From knowing the difference between an original tweet and a retweet (on the basic end of the spectrum) to crafting lifecycle attribution by melding tools like Bit.ly PRO and Facebook Insights with analytics packages (on the advanced end), social media expertise more than just useful, but often critical to improving overall performance.
Facebook has 600 million users; Twitter's at nearly 200 million; LinkedIn is over 100 million; Blogs have hundreds of millions of readers and tens of millions of publishers; Tumblr alone has 250 million pageviews in a day and Disqus reaches 500 million visitors each month. Social's driving an increasing proportion of the web's traffic, conversions and value. How can anyone logically proclaim that experts are worthless?
As a thought excercise, I created the following chart highlighting some of the critical knowledge areas in social media:

NOTE: As I am not a social media expert, these are likely more illustrative than they are accurate

I don't see how Mr. Shankman can believe A) that these pieces of knowledge won't help organizations improve B) that such knowledge is innate and requires no specialization, research or study.
As further evidence, I'll call to the witness stand some exemplary individuals and companies that I've seen have a massive impact on improving KPIs, processes and internal use of social media. While I'm a passionate supporter of social media marketing, these are the true experts:

Marty Weintraub of AimClear is one of the industry's shining stars. His research, clients and results speak for themselves. No one has ever seen Marty speak and not come away in awe of the passion, dedication and deep expertise he shines.
Dan Zarrella of Hubspot has put together some of the most respectable and useful research in the field of social media and helped to turn HubSpot into a shining beacon of knowledge dissementation across the web. His presentations, webinars and data have made him the web's pre-eminent social media scientist, and someone whose expertise is backed by more data than nearly anyone else in the marketing field.
Ciarán Norris of Mindshare Digital, whom I've known for years and who grew from a talented search marketer into an even more talented social and brand marketer. He now runs digital media marketing for Mindshare in Ireland and has helped dozens of big brands build remarkable, revenue-generating social strategies.
Thomas Høgenhaven is currently engaged in a unique project to study and make recommendations around SEOmoz's internal social community, analyzing how users interact with each other, when high vs. low quality behavior emerges and how to encourage the former while minimizing the latter. I fully expect Thomas' expertise and his work will be invaluable to our community and to the long-term prospects of this part of our business.
Jen Lopez of SEOmoz runs community management here at Moz. She's helped to scale our social presences, stayed in touch with events, questions and engagement across multiple networks and is directly responsible for a substantive portion of our traffic, conversions, retention and brand-building efforts. Her expertise spans tools, platforms, branding concepts, social launches and more. See, for example, the recent Mozcation program she's turned into an amazing outpouring of community effort and attention.
Kristy Bolsinger of Ant's Eye View has consulted with dozens of local and national firms to help devise successful social media + web marketing programs. I've personally heard great feedback from folks who've worked with her, which is why I continue to refer those seeking consultants her way.

There are remarkable people with social media expertise. Some of them even use the highly appropriate title "social media expert" or "social media specialist." They provide a ton of value to the organizations they work with and neither Mr. Shankman, nor anyone else, should belittle their profession.
In fact, I recommend the opposite. Do as we've done, and hire folks with social media knowledge and expertise. It will open opportunities that wouldn't be otherwise available, and if your other processes around monetization and customer acquisition scale, social is a phenomenal compliment to whatever channels you're currently pursuing.
On a final note:

Peter Shankman in the directory: InvestinSocial

Mr. Shankman, if you despise social media expertise and those who earn a living from sharing that knowledge with others, might I suggest that you remove your "featured" listing from this directory of social media consultants? Also, let's get a beer sometime. I bet you've got a ton of social expertise that could help my company (totally serious - I'll even buy).

How Fast Does Your Site Load? How Important Is That For Google SEO?

It’s been many years that we have considered how fast a page loads as one of the on-site optimization criterium used by Google spiders. The faster a page loads, the better rank it will have on Google.

This was proven a day ago when Google announced that it is going to add “Site Speed” to Google Analytics results. Site Speed will measure and report how fast each of your Web pages will load (on average) when someone visits your site.

But why load-time speed is so important?

We know the sites that are very pretty and have sophisticated designs, such as FLASH sites, or sites that are image or video heavy load slower. On the other hand, sites that only have text and very minimal navigation (except through text-links) load the fastest – but text-only sites are boring.

With the Internet speed growing in average house-holds, you’d think sites that are more beautiful should get more credit by Google, but not so fast. It is true that we now have faster Internet speed around the world compared to a few years ago, however, as Internet users, our patience for loading pages has also diminished. We leave a page quickly if it doesn’t load within a few of seconds. Or if we really want the page, we are frustrated to wait.

According to Pear Analytics, In 2007 Amazon conducted a test to see how the speed of your page loading affects losing traffic. The results were astonishing. For every second that your site loads slower, you lose roughly 1% of your site’s traffic. This means if you have a FLASH site and it takes 20 seconds to load, you lose 20% of your site’s visitors before they even see your site. In sales numbers, losing 20% of your potential customers is HUGE.

So, our recommendation to you is to make your site load as fast as possible to increase your page-views, traffic and consequently sales.

Gaining a Record Number of Clients

Boulder, CO – SEO company Master Google has signed up a record six new clients in the month of April, demonstrating that their business is really gaining momentum.

“Our reputation is growing as a search optimization company that can really get results for your website and your business,” explains Ali Husayni, CEO of Master Google.

Businesses are increasingly aware of how important it is to optimize their search engine results and how critical their Web presence is to their overall success. “More and more businesses are realizing the power of SEO and the importance of Google in their success,” notes Husayni.

“Everyone wants their piece of the pie.”

The new clients are a diverse group of businesses, including a taxi service, a real estate agent training school, a pediatric dentistry/orthodontics practice, a printing company, a heating/air conditioning company, and a shoe company. This diversity is in keeping with Master Google’s list of existing and previous clients, which includes industries such as dentistry, vacation rentals, wedding photography, psychiatry, email archiving, gynecology, electric cigarettes, engineering, and many others.

Over the past three years, Web SEO company Master Google has doubled its revenue each year. The company is on track to do so again in 2011. “It’s important that we build a relationship with each client so that they understand what we’re doing and how we’re helping their business to grow,” Husayni remarks. “We will provide the same high quality service to ALL of our clients – old and new. We refuse to sacrifice the quality of our work just because the quantity of our clients has increased.”

Master Google turned away many prospective clients that it felt could not fully benefit from the company’s SEO services. “The qualification process is vigorous,” says Husayni. “We look at the prospects’ prior SEO experience, their competition on Google, how user-friendly their website is, and many other factors.”

For instance, Husayni recently turned away a Los Angeles dentist whose site was not up to the standards of the Web. “We told the dentist and his team that with their current site they could not benefit from a high Google rank because site visitors would be discouraged from contacting them. They needed to build a new site first.”

Master Google’s success is due to its utmost care for each and every client. The team in general and Husayni in particular ensure that everything they do will benefit their clients. “All search engine optimization firms can provide meta tag updates while inserting keywords,” observes Husayni. “But, Master Google will go the extra mile to really understand your business and tailor each strategy to your organization’s needs. That is why our company keeps growing.”

© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Master Google are credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this document is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

Google Ranks The Most Reputable Company In The US

Haris Interactive just announced the results of their poll yesterday, which indicates Google is now considered by most American’s as the most “reputable” company in the US.

Since 1999, the Americans have never had such a positive attitude towards “corporate” America.

Google ranked #1, replacing Berkshire Hathaway, which fell to the #4 place. Johnson & Johnson ranked second, followed by 3M Company at 3rd. Apple’s reputation is growing steadily since 2002 and is now #5.

The poll had asked 30,000 Americans to rate top 60 most visible companies based on their leadership, social responsibility, vision, emotional appeal, financial performance, products and services, and workplace environment.

This is another reason why being ranked on Google is important. The general public sees Google as reputable and it trusts the sites that rank well on Google.

What You Don’t Know About SEO

Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA - Over the past couple of months, we have discussed different areas of Internet marketing. We have shared information about social media marketing and search engine marketing, and in our third installment of this series, we cover search engine optimization.

SEO is the term used to describe how companies such as ours maximize the number of visitors to a website by getting the site to rank high on organic search results.

“It is imperative that the Internet marketing business you choose to provide SEM, SEO or social media marketing services is a reputable company that does not use black hat SEO techniques,” says Ali Husayni, founder of Master Google.

Following is a bit of information on how we help our clients achieve top SEO results.

Keywords
Most clients come to us with some idea of the keywords they want associated with their businesses.

“We work with the client to brainstorm keyword phrases and conduct research to get a long list of words potential customers likely are searching for,” Husayni says. “We also look at a client’s competitors to determine the types of keywords they are using.”

From there, we begin to review, categorize and compare search volume and competitiveness of the main keywords. Finally, we prioritize each client’s keyword phrases based on relevance and their propensity to drive traffic and sales.

Optimization
A variety of work is done to a client’s site when we optimize it. We create a sitemap.xml file and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools, and we create/update the HTML sitemap page of our clients’ websites.

We also make sure that search engines are not blocked through no-index meta tags, robots.txt files, or anything else that blocks search engines from accessing and indexing the website.

Google doesn’t like duplicate content, so we remove any duplicate content on our clients’ sites and replace it with fresh, original content.

We also remove any black hat SEO techniques that have been done to the site, and we create a blog for each client, as well as install SEO and Sitemap plug-ins. We add a “most recent blog post” section to the home page, which is important for freshening content.

“The list of steps we take to optimize a client’s site is much longer, but these are some general tasks that we do,” Husayni says.

Link Building
“Link building is a vital part of the overall professional SEO process,” Husayni says. Getting relevant links back to the client’s website is important.

Jolina Pettice, a senior account manager with TopRank Online Marketing, says “inbound links are like electricity for search visibility,” and we agree with her.

We build links for our clients by generating quality content, linking up with marketing partners and often through promotion via social networks.

Tie In Social Media Efforts
It was big news recently when Google and Bing disclosed that social links and social media influences have an impact on search results.

“Social media outlets such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo- just to name a few- provide additional ways in which our clients can get their information out to potential customers. The great thing about posting items such as videos, articles and press releases to these sites is that doing so provides relevant links back to our clients’ sites,” Husayni says.

Because so many people use social media these days, posting items via these outlets creates a number of opportunities for the information to be promoted by others when they choose to share it with their friends.

Google Places
If you are trying to be found by your customers/patients locally, Google Places is the answer. This doesn’t work for companies that have a national or international client base – unless they have physical office locations in major cities. But if you are a dentist in Augusta, Georgia, being optimized on Google Places for that city certainly will help you appear high in search results when people Google “Augusta, Georgia dentist” or something else along those lines.

“Google Places is tied in to SEO, but there are some deliberate steps that must be taken to achieve the desired rankings,” Husayni says. “We offer that service to our clients.”

Husayni recently created an informative how-to video on getting the most out of Google Places. “In the coming weeks, we are going to post this video, along with directions on how we get our clients listed on Google Places,” he says.

It goes without saying that optimizing websites for Google searches is the most important goal for SEO, and that point was driven home once again recently with the announcement that Google had been named the most “reputable” company in the United States by Haris Interactive. It was followed by Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Berkshire Hathaway and Apple.

“This news is just one more reason why being ranked on Google is important,” Husayni says. “The general public views Google as reputable, and it trusts the sites that rank high on Google.”

© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Sinai Marketing is credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this press release is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.
-end-

$99 SEO Package Is Officially Launched – 100% Guaranteed

October 1st is when we promised to launch our $99 SEO package. Now, you can read more about it and sign up here.

For a limited time, we’re going to offer the full Web site optimization services to help your site/blog rank better on Google and the other search engines for only $99. The $99 SEO package is valued at $1,000 worth of SEO work so, you are going to save $900.

I am going to add a 100% money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied with the results after 3 months.

Don’t hesitate and sign up now.

If your site has a Google PageRank (PR) of 2+, then we can offer you the same service for free. Click here to learn more about our free SEO program.

If you’re not satisfied with our free SEO work after three months, we will send you a check for $99.

Google SEO Tip: Avoid Duplicate Content by All Means

Google rankings of many Web sites suffer greatly because of a phenomenon called “duplicate content.” Our recent client, cryoserver.com was penalized (red-flagged) for this particular reason prior to signing up with us. The site was ranked on page 13 of Google SERP’s for one of their main keywords.

Duplicate content refers to “substantive blocks of content” that match or are similar to “content within or across domains”, according to Google webmaster central. Google simply reduces the ranking of both pages/Web sites if it notices similar content being posted.

Here are some examples of duplicate content and tips on how to resolve them:

Mirrored Sites
Having mirrored sites refers to the same Web site being hosted on two or more different domains. This was basically what cryoserver.com had done. They had their site hosted on cryoserver.com as well as forensiccs.com.

Use a domain-level redirect from one domain to the other to resolve the mirrored sites issue. Also, use 301 redirects for any linked-to Web pages within the redirected domain.

We asked cryoserver.com to redirect the mirrored domain to the main one. After only one week, Google removed the red-flag and now their site ranks on the 3rd page (still some SEO work is needed to get them to the first page).

The same for-sale items on e-commerce Web sites
This is very common when it comes to e-commerce sites. Many URL’s are dynamically created and linked to from the home-page or other pages. Or simply, one product is placed within different categories. To resolve this issue, you should avoid dynamically building your pages and use different description even for the same products if they’re placed on different categories (having different url’s).

Copied text to be placed on competitors Web sites
If someone copies your text and place it on their site, your site could be penalized (flagged) by Google spiders for having duplicate content. This doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it reduces your site’s rank on Google dramatically. To resolve this issue, you should contact the site that copied your text and ask them (by using all means) to remove the stolen text from their site. If they don’t comply, you should just rewrite your own content (painful, but it’s easier and less expensive than hacking the other site and removing your text).

Print-only versions of Web pages
Avoid print-versions if at all possible. If you cannot, use a “no-follow” tag wherever you link to a print-version copy of your Web pages.

Web pages that generate a mobile-friendly version
Similar to above, use “no-follow” tags so Google spiders don’t follow the link.

If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask. We will respond to all questions in a timely manner.

20 Best Press Release Distribution Sites Revealed

Press release distribution was the focal point of 2009 link-building campaigns. Many high-end SEO companies used this technique to:

1- Provide their clients with a presence on Google News

2- Drive more targeted traffic to their clients’ sites

3- Obtain high-quality inbound links.

We were no exception. We used press releases extensively. We even spent countless hours researching and testing different press release distribution sites and prepared the list below. This list will help you identify the best press release distribution sites and only submit to those that are worth while – saving much time, money and energy in testing them yourself.

Note: you need a standard high-quality press release before submitting to these sites, or your release will be rejected.

We do provide a top-quality and inexpensive press release development/distribution service (it’s 100% custom designed to fit your needs). Click here to learn more.

Press release distribution sites – ranked based on the ROI we observed:
URL Google PR Text Links/URLs Allowed Pricing Options
MarketWire.Com 7 4 Depends on the distribution circle – $75 for the
advanced SEO package which includes text links within the content
NewsWire.Ca 7 Depends on the
distribution circle – also charge per text-link
Earthtimes.Org 7 5 Free
Prweb.Com 7 5 $80- $140- $200- $360
Pr.Com 7 5 free- $199- $499
Prfire.co.uk 7 5 free- $30- $75
Prlog.Org 6 3 Free
24-7PressRelease.Com 6 8 $49- $89- $139- $369
PrLeap.Com 5 8 $49
TransWorldNews.Com 5 8 $49.95- $64.95-
$99.95- $114.95- $999- $50- $65- $2,495
BusinessWireIndia.com 5 6 $112
FastPitchNetWorking.Com 5 8 $18 and up
Seopressreleases.Com 5 8 $49- $99
OnlinePrnews.Com 5 6 $12- $49- $349
Express-press-release.net 5 10 $29
Pr-USA.Net 5 8 Free
PressBox.Co.Uk 5 6 Free
PressReleasePoint.Com 5 7 Free
Live-pr.Com 5 6 Free
Impactwire.Com 5 6 Free
DropJack.Com 5 7 Free
WiredPRNews.Com 4 2 $19.95- $24.95- $1995
BigNews.Biz 4 1 Free
PressRelease365.Com 4 5 $24.95- $49.95-
$99.95
BeforeItsnews.Com 4 8 Free
Widespreadpr.Com 4 8 Free
Free-press-release-
center.Info 4 3 $2.99
FreePressrelease.Com 4 8 Free
FreePressindex.Com 4 1 Free
FreePressreleases.co.uk 4 8 Free- $50- $120- $230
PressReleaseSpider.Com 4 1 $4.95
FreePressRelease.Com.au 4 1 Free
PressMediaWire.Com 3 8 $30- $80- $149
PrWallstreet.Com 3 8 Free- $19- $59
InfoDento.Com 2 8 Free

Stay tuned for more link-building techniques/lists to emerge soon.

Google SEO Simplified – Part II (Links)

In the previous part of this article I narrowed down what Google is interested in into two categories: 1) content and 2) links. We discussed content in Part I and here we’ll focus on links.

Generally when we talk about links we mean any link that is either placed on your site pointing to another Web page (outbound) or placed on other sites pointing to your Web page (inbound). By “links” in this article, I’m only referring to the latter.

Google’s success has been mostly because of its decision to rate Web sites based on the quantity (as well as the quality) of the links they receive – much like the academia’s rating of a scientific article. The more an article is used as a “source” by other scientists, the more authoritative that article becomes.

Google uses the same rating method for sites: the more a site gets referred to by other sites, the more authoritative it is. In other words, the more links a site has, the better rank it’ll get.

Google’s principle is that sites with good content should naturally be used as sources by other sites. But the older Google becomes, the more difficult it gets for sites to naturally generate the needed link popularity in order to rank atop Google search results – despite the quality of their content.

On the other hand, Google fawns upon sites that engage in “black-hat SEO” to gain artificial link popularity. So, what are you to do if you want your site to compete for that 1st page position in a competitive market?

The answer is not simple.

First, you cannot just sit and wait for other sites to link to you. That simply won’t happen. In a world where there are thousands of new sites built everyday, your prospective site visitors have no way of finding you to read your content (unless you already rank on Google). Second, you cannot just write comments on 100’s of blogs or forums to gain the popularity you need (because most of these comments and the links you gain from them have “nofollow” attribute – meaning Google gives them no value. And third, what might have worked six months ago (in successful link-building techniques), may no longer be a good practice.

But there are other ways.

At Master Google, our R&D team works every day to find new methods/techniques so we can semi-artificially (and yet naturally) improve our clients link popularity and therefore their Google ranks. To help our readers, we share our newest techniques so you can engage in tried-and-true link-building campaign to help rank your site atop Google. And here is a list of what works for us:

Blogging: we build blogs for our clients and constantly keeping them up-to-date (with new posts) while linking from them to our clients’ sites.

Directories: we submit our clients site to many directories (that have a PR3 or more). Here is a list of directories we recommend.

Articles: writing/optimizing/submitting articles to reputable sites helps us gain link popularity for all of our clients. And here is a list of article submission sites with good page rank.

Press Releases: writing/optimizing/submitting press releases to news sites has huge benefit for our clients. We can improve their rankings immediately when we submit releases for them. Here is a list of SEO friendly press release sites.

Freebies: we offer freebies to those site visitors that link to our clients sites.

Competitors: we go after those sites that are linking to our clients’ competitors and request links to our clients’ sites.

Partners: we ask our clients to request links from their partners/friends’ sites.

All the above is much easier said than done. Engaging in all the techniques above requires months of hard labor and a complete understanding of SEO, and of course cash. Nevertheless, we’ve been able to transform local-small businesses into large-international ones in a matter of a few months by practicing what we preach.

So, if you’re someone who doesn’t have the money to hire a professional SEO company, then you need to learn the hoops of SEO. With hard work it’ll take you a couple of years to master the techniques and with investing some money and a lot of time, you’re able to rank your site above everyone else.

But smart business people who have financial backing delegate important tasks to professionals instead of spending years mastering what someone else already knows and instead focusing on YOUR business. If you are that person, fill out our form and I’ll be happy to look at your site and see if it qualifies for our Top of Google program.

Natural Link Building: Links from Blog Posts/Comments

One of our clients brought up an issue with me a few days ago. While trying to visit relevant blogs to his site and placing a comment there with a link back to his site, he noticed that almost 100% of these sites have a “nofollow” tag.
- Is it worth to place a comment/link where the link will have a nofollow tag?
- Are there blogs that do not have a no-follow tag for the comment sections? How can we find them?
- If leaving comments on blogs has no link-value, then why should we do it?
What is a nofollow tag?
A nofollow tag has the following format (HTML code):
rel=”nofollow”>text link
The nofollow tag indicates to Google (and other) spiders to not follow the link to its intended place. Thus, making such links value-less from an SEO point of view. The only intended audience for these links are human visitors who cannot tell the difference between a followed link and a nofollowed link (because the code is hidden in the back-end).
Now, getting back to the original questions. The short answer is that if you leave comments to get some link-juice for your site, don’t do it. You won’t get any SEO benefit from them. Because many black-hat SEO companies have abused the comment section of the blogs, almost all blogs have nofollow tags for the comment sections.
On the other hand, they don’t have nofollow tags for the main blog pages or other links on the site.
Instead of leaving a comment with your link in it, contact the blog admin and tell him that you’re interested in placing a link to your site on his blog/site.
Here are some tips to get the most benefit from your efforts:
- Check the blog’s PR (Page Rank). Sites with less than PR3 are usually not worth your efforts.
- In your first contact, indicate that you’re willing to pay a fee if necessary. Most blog owners crave for such business generating from their blog and most are honest people that will honor your agreement.
- Ask for a link on the home page. Home page links have far more value than links from the internal pages.
- Try to make an arrangement for a year at a time – the longer your link stays on a site, the more value it will have with Google.
- Pay monthly if you can.
- Give the blog admin the exact URL and anchored text-link to be used for the link.
- Also give him a description to go with/around your text link – a text-link without any text around it could be viewed negatively by Google.
- Varry your anchored-text as well as the URL for the best results.
- Monitor your link on a regular basis.
Still, visit blogs and leave comments with links to your site, not for the benefits of SEO, but for encouraging other blog visitors to visit your site. That generates traffic/customers and if you have excellent content, could lead to natural links for your site

Using Twitter for Marketing

“Experts are calling it the biggest marketing tool for your business since Google,” notes Ali Husayni of Master Google. Everyone knows they should be using Twitter, but how? A mere 140 characters doesn’t seem to be much of a marketing opportunity. But it can be very handy if you use it right.
Instant Information: Since Twitter is all about what a person is doing right now, there is no faster way to get the word out. When you tweet about a recent development, you are disseminating that information instantaneously to your followers. Twitter is perfect for people with Web-enabled phones and small screens; if an individual wants to contact people where they are at the moment (for instance, at a trade show or big event), Twitter can do it.
Faster than Blogs: Blogs are a great source of information about the latest happenings in a business. But getting someone to read your blog means enticing them to visit a website – and this extra step may be a deal breaker. Tweets get the information to the audience without requiring them to commit the time and energy to locate and visit a site. Businesses can use Twitter to announce a new blog post or webinar – driving traffic to their site. Think of tweets as little micro-blogs.
Following/Getting Followed: Twitter is all about building relationships. When you start a Twitter account, you can search for others with similar interests and “follow” them. They, in turn, can follow you – allowing you to build up an audience relatively quickly. And since Twitter is inherently democratic, it’s not hard to get fairly well-known people in a field to “follow” you.
Building a Network: As with other social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter lets you locate and join communities of people with similar interests. Once you have people who are part of a network, you can solidify those relationships by sending them emails, responding promptly to questions, and keeping track of retweets (and thanking those who retweet their posts).
Retweets: Twitter is democratic. Anyone can have an account and can tweet about whatever they want. But Twitter users need to make the content interesting so that their followers will want to share the information with their followers. “If you can do this, you’re harnessing the true power of Twitter,” explains Husayni, of the Google ranking company Master Google, known for its 1st page of Google program. “Not only is it democratic, but it’s viral. You write the tweet and let your Twitter network do the rest.”
Content: The best content is informational rather than overtly promotional. Don’t think of tweets as ads, but as informative posts. Instead of: “New product! Only 19.95!,” you should think along the lines of “We have a new product. Click here to learn about it and view pricing information.”
“People don’t want to send their followers tweets that feel like advertisements or spam, but they do want to share valuable information,” notes Husayni, an SEO Services expert. “Tweeters should be sure they only use the site when they have valuable content to share.”
Monitor: When using Twitter, it’s important to keep track of essential keywords so a company can read and react to the most valuable tweets. Any SEO consulting company will also advise that a business monitor its Web presence. Twitter is a great tool for seeing what is being said about your company.
© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Master Google are credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this document is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

May 23, 2011

Making Money Online Through Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most common avenues for making money online. Affiliate marketing is, in essence, when you sign on with companies to market their products and services on your own website in return for a certain percentage of money made by people who buy things after clicking on a link on your site. Generally affiliate marketers make between thirty five and eighty percent of the profits made on a sale.
Signing up as an affiliate marketer is free and you can even market for free on a personal blog or site through something like blogger.com or WordPress. Affiliate marketing isn’t a bad place to start if you want to make money online, but if you want to be well off, you’ll have to know some tricks and tips.
The trick to succeeding in affiliate marketing is to build a blog or info-site built around your affiliates so that people researching what you’re pushing can learn about it and then click on a link to buy whatever it is you’re talking about. Many successful web entrepreneurs do this because it is free to become and affiliate and hosting your own website is highly affordable; usually just a few dollars a month. You have to become an expert in your field, which means researching and writing on a given subject that you wish to market. This information can then be used in email marketing and your website.
However, you can’t only write content, you also has to push your site out there. There are a number of tools geared towards increasing traffic to your website, optimizing your site for search engines, and making places like Google rank you. After all, you won’t be a successful affiliate marketer if you aren’t seen, so you have to do just as much work into pushing your site as you do towards filling it.
There are entire libraries of information devoted to how to do this and the information is always changing slightly, so you’re better off exploring reputable tools to help. Knowing things like Search Engine Optimization, forum marketing and email marketing are all things that take practice and training, so be prepared for some education in order to make lots of money.
Affiliate marketing is one of those making money online schemes which actually works if you put the effort into it. There are many people who can make hundreds and even thousands of dollars a month with just a few months of hard work and the rest of the time largely spent updating sites and watching the cash come in. Businesses pay very well to have their names plastered on other sites and many online businesses work entirely on the premise of being affiliate marketers.
It’s a fantastic money making niche and almost entirely free to start. However, it is highly advisable to put a bit of money into a good system that will show you how to go about making the most out of affiliate marketing right from the start, so make sure to look around and then get down to making money online by helping others find what they need.

You know that you can make money becoming an affiliate for various businesses, large and small. For many people, that is the sole way that they make money online and it can be really good business. But what about promoting the affiliate programs themselves? Can you make money promoting affiliate programs for affiliates? And if so, how? First of all, understand that you can easily promote other affiliates simply by signing up with the larger merchant. For example, ClickBank not only allows you to sell niche digital products, but you can also sign on with the affiliate program for ClickBank and sell advertising for the company; this is what it means to promote other affiliate programs as opposed to promoting products sold on a given website. Other good affiliate programs to promote include Ebay and Amazon, but any site which sells affiliate marketing as well as products is a good candidate. Why Is Promoting Affiliate Programs Good Money? It may seem a bit odd to promote a program rather than products, but you can make good online money doing it for a number of reasons. First of all, these affiliate programs give a higher commission for people who refer other affiliates as opposed to referring customers. Second of all, these affiliate programs also sell plenty of products; for example, ClickBank sells tens of thousands of digital products on the site which you can also get a commission for should someone you refer buy something. This means that you get double the chance for cash. Most affiliate programs give a minimum of 25% commission and upwards of 75-80% commission. Amazon.com is the only one that offers only between 4-8.5%. However, don’t judge by numbers alone; the higher the commission, the more narrow the niche and that means that though you get more money per referral, you end up with far fewer referrals in the long run. Instead, you should opt for a moderate commission base depending on how you intend to push your chosen affiliate program. If you get a smaller commission, but a wider possible consumer base, you may make far more money online than a larger commission with a smaller base. Sign Up! It’s generally free to sign up as an affiliate marketer for an affiliate program. Once you sign up, you are given a range of codes for all different kinds of advertising such as banner ads and text links which you can then use on your own site. Then simply work on ranking your site high as you would be doing anyway. Remember that the more traffic you have coming to your site, the more potential people there are to send to your affiliate sites and the more money you’ll make. Affiliate marketing for other affiliate programs can be a great way to make money online if you do it properly. Choose a company that offers a good commission and as wide a possible consumer base as possible and then work on pushing your site higher in the ranks so that you get more traffic. You can make good money promoting affiliate programs online just as you can make good money promoting products and in the same way.

You know that you can make money becoming an affiliate for various businesses, large and small. For many people, that is the sole way that they make money online and it can be really good business. But what about promoting the affiliate programs themselves? Can you make money promoting affiliate programs for affiliates? And if so, how?
First of all, understand that you can easily promote other affiliates simply by signing up with the larger merchant. For example, ClickBank not only allows you to sell niche digital products, but you can also sign on with the affiliate program for ClickBank and sell advertising for the company; this is what it means to promote other affiliate programs as opposed to promoting products sold on a given website. Other good affiliate programs to promote include Ebay and Amazon, but any site which sells affiliate marketing as well as products is a good candidate.
Why Is Promoting Affiliate Programs Good Money?

It may seem a bit odd to promote a program rather than products, but you can make good online money doing it for a number of reasons. First of all, these affiliate programs give a higher commission for people who refer other affiliates as opposed to referring customers. Second of all, these affiliate programs also sell plenty of products; for example, ClickBank sells tens of thousands of digital products on the site which you can also get a commission for should someone you refer buy something. This means that you get double the chance for cash.
Most affiliate programs give a minimum of 25% commission and upwards of 75-80% commission. Amazon.com is the only one that offers only between 4-8.5%. However, don’t judge by numbers alone; the higher the commission, the more narrow the niche and that means that though you get more money per referral, you end up with far fewer referrals in the long run. Instead, you should opt for a moderate commission base depending on how you intend to push your chosen affiliate program. If you get a smaller commission, but a wider possible consumer base, you may make far more money online than a larger commission with a smaller base.
Sign Up!

It’s generally free to sign up as an affiliate marketer for an affiliate program. Once you sign up, you are given a range of codes for all different kinds of advertising such as banner ads and text links which you can then use on your own site. Then simply work on ranking your site high as you would be doing anyway. Remember that the more traffic you have coming to your site, the more potential people there are to send to your affiliate sites and the more money you’ll make.
Affiliate marketing for other affiliate programs can be a great way to make money online if you do it properly. Choose a company that offers a good commission and as wide a possible consumer base as possible and then work on pushing your site higher in the ranks so that you get more traffic. You can make good money promoting affiliate programs online just as you can make good money promoting products and in the same way.

5 Tips For Ensure You Succeed Working At Home As An Affiliate Marketer

As an affiliate marketer with your own online business, you can enjoy many benefits of working from home. Today, many people want to work at home and earn money online and avoid being stuck in a nine-to-five job.
Working at home an affiliate marketer brings many benefits, namely you are your own boss and you can manage your own time. This means that you can set your work hours and adjust them to suit your personal life. You can spend more time with your family or kids. You don’t have to drive to work everyday. You set the targets of what you want to earn from your affiliate business, and you simply go for it! wealthy affiliate
Although having your own affiliate marketing business and working from home has many benefits, working from home requires a lot of discipline and organizational skills so that you can plan your time properly. There can be many distractions at home, and you must make sure that each day you do what you need to do grow your affiliate marketing business.
This article outlines five basic tips that you can use as a work-from-home affiliate marketer so that you can manage your time effectively and have enough time to expand your business and earn huge affiliate commissions.
1. Set the hours that you will be working everyday and stick to them. Affiliate marketing involves a lot of work especially when you are still starting to build your business. It is therefore important that you allocate enough time everyday to work on your affiliate marketing business. While working at home, many things can happen that can take you away from your work, but you must exercise a lot of discipline so that you do not neglect your business. one week marketing
2. Have your own office where you can work without any interruptions. Although the benefit of working from home is that you can work in your pajamas anyway you want, it is recommended that you have an office where you can organize your work and be able to work in peace and quiet without any disturbances. Having a suitable working environment will increase your productivity.
3. Have the necessary tools. Obviously, to succeed as an online entrepreneur you need the necessary tools. This includes your own computer, printer and fast internet connection. If you handle your affiliate marketing business professionally, you will succeed in making money online.
4. Do not neglect your health. Most affiliate markets are driven to succeed quickly. As a result they can work long hours during the day and night to grow their business and start to earn big commissions. It is important for you to take a break, exercise and get enough rest. 4 day money making blueprint review
5. Get a mentor and interact with other affiliate markets. Depending on your experience in internet marketing, interacting with other marketers can help you learn some tips that you can use to grow your affiliate marketing business.
Tagged with: 4 day money making blueprint • 4 day money making blueprint review • one week marketing review • Wealthy Affiliate • wealthy affiliate review
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing

10 Super Easy SEO Copywriting Tips for Improved Link Building

Compare the two posts below, both written by the exact same SEO expert and each containing around the same number of words. Without knowing the subject, can you guess which post earned more links?

Try 378 to 6. In addition to its visual appeal, the left post was more timely, useful and informative - all hallmarks of copywriting grace.
The “secrets” of copywriting have existed since before the ancient Greeks. Generations of Don Drapers have perfected the craft. Today we use computer analysis and data mining to uncover the most effective SEO practices. Rand’s early peek at the Ranking Factors hints at some of these factors. My colleague Casey Henry conducted a study of link-worthy material that included elements such as title length and word frequency. Fantastic stuff and I hope he does another such study soon.
So why don’t more authors take advantage? Why all the cardboard looking blog posts?
Here’s the takeaway. To earn links, use copywriting to organize your content.

1. Write for Power Skimmers

Steve Krug’s words of wisdom for website usability in his book Don’t Make Me Think ring true for all elements of SEO copywriting.

"We don’t read pages. We scan them.”
-Steve Krug

Krug advocates for a billboard style of design. This means using language, images, layout and color to make your material stand out and shine. Think of motorcycle riders speeding past billboards. Which one will they remember?
To be fair, prettying up mediocre content won’t make it any better. But does your best work look like it belongs in an encyclopedia?

Unless you are Wikipedia, don’t look like Wikipedia.

2. Why Headline Formulas Work

Headlines organize your content by making a promise to the reader. The body of your content delivers on that promise.
Check out this recent cover for Wired Magazine.

Using the “who-what-why” formula isn’t the only way to format your headlines, but it works. Another technique I like is to ask a question, e.g., “Have You Been Secretly Penalized by Google?”
Don't be scared of headline formulas. Instead of "gimmicky," think of them as a framework for the promise you make. When I’m stuck for headline inspiration, I surf the fantastic resources over at Copyblogger.
There are literally dozens of effective headline formulas out there, so you need never worry about repeating yourself.

3. Get 20% More with Numbers

I made that number up. Why?
Numbers grab our attention. Look at the titles to some of the most linked-to posts on SEOmoz.

It makes you want to click one of those links right now...
Whether in a headline or a list, numbers light up the ordered, mathematical part of our brain to make content more attractive. It also provides you with a way to structure your material in a way that makes sense.

4. Free and Easy Power Words

My writing life changed when I read Robert W. Bly’s seminal work, The Copywriter’s Handbook. He introduced me to the power of choosing the right language for successful communication.
Although some of his “power” words belong in the back of a Sunday newspaper advertisement, their effectiveness can’t be denied. These include words like quick, easy, guarantee and free.

“Free is the most powerful word in the copywriter’s vocabulary. Everybody wants to get something for free.”
-Robert W. Bly

Words are magic. The opposite of power words includes language like try, maybe, might, possibly and perhaps. These "halfway" words kill your writing.
The point is not to use a rote list of words like a checklist in your copy, but rather be conscious of the power (or lack of) your language. Don’t hedge your bets with weak prose.

5. A Picture is Worth 1000 Clicks

Rethink your visuals. Visuals are essential to any story and include:

Photographs
Artwork
Charts and Graphs
Slidedecks
Video
Infographics

The wrong way to add images is to buy stock or steal them off of the web. Instead, make every effort to include original media in your content. A simple, 100% original hand drawing attracts more interesting any day of the week than using Parked Domain Girl.
Unique Images Earn Links

Original Pineapple Artwork by Dawn Shepard

It doesn’t matter what you use, just make it original.

6. Use Sub-Headlines or Die Trying

This is a no-brainer. Imagine the front page of a newspaper with just one headline. All other text is equal. You wouldn’t read it, or you would tire quickly if you did. Our brains don’t work that way.
We want things broken up and organized.
If your text is longer than 250-400 words, you must use sub-headlines. No exceptions.

7. When in Doubt, List it Out

This entire post is a list. Try these numbers on for size:

75% of the top 20 post on SEOmoz contain a bulleted list
60% feature a numbered list

Why do lists work so well? Why is David Letterman’s Top Ten the most anticipated part of his show, even if it’s not as funny as the rest of the show?
Lists are the building blocks of ideas. When we go to the grocery store, we don’t write a story – that’s ineffective. To communicate your thoughts quickly and effectively, nothing gets to the root of the matter like a list can.
Humans crave order. Use lists to create structure and build your content from the ground up.

8. Quotes

My all-time favorite use of effective quoting comes from Michael Crichton’s science fiction work Timeline. He juxtaposes two ideas against each other to explain a single concept about quantum theory.

“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory does not understand it.”
NEILS BOHR, 1927
“Nobody understands quantum theory.”
RICHARD FEYNMAN, 1967

Utilize quotes to set your ideas apart.

9. The Bold and the Italic

Along the same lines, use bold to emphasize important points. If you don’t have important points, you have bigger problems.
Italics do the same job but sound more European, like this guy.

10. Be Honest

Effective SEO copywriting should never alter or misrepresent your work. Indeed, its purpose is to help you communicate your core ideas more clearly and effectively.

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know."
— Ernest Hemingway

Writing from the heart is always the best copywriting technique.

Introducing MozCation: Nominate Your City for an SEOmoz Meetup

Posted by jennita to SEO Events

Imagine this if you will… you're sitting in your office in Denver, working away and see a tweet come through your stream about an SEOmoz meetup in New York City. You think to yourself, "self… why do they always have these meetups so far away? It'd be cool if they came to Denver, we have lots of SEOs here too, yo." [that's at least how I talk to myself] Ok… ok so perhaps you've never had that exact situation happen, but perhaps something similar. :) Which is exactly why we came up with the SEOmoz Family MozCation!

We're hitting the road, and want to have a meetup in your city!

But why?

Our community means the world to us, and getting to spend time with you in a small setting is the best way to get to know you. Usually we have a meetup in large cities which we're already visiting because we're speaking at a conference, or something like that. But we're ready to expand our horizons a bit and possibly hit up some smaller cities or places we don't often visit. This is where you come in...

Nominate your city for our first meetup on June 29th!

But here's the thing, obviously you know your city better than we do. So we're asking you to put together some piece of content to tell us why we should plan a meetup in your town. We want you to get creative here. Nominating your city is easy. Just follow the steps below:

1. Create some awesome content to tell us why your city is awesome

Tell us why we your city (town, area, whatever) is perfect for a meetup of online marketers. It doesn't matter if it's a big city or a small town, if you're in the United States or Timbuktu. What types of content can you come up with? Get creative, but here are some examples:

A video: Show us the sights, get your friends together a do a quick jig, tell the camera why your town is the best.

A blog post: Make the case using your brilliant writing skills. Do you have an amazing fountain in your town, is there a great brew pub, do you and your friends meet and talk SEO every single day?

A song: Are you musically gifted? Write a song and tell how why we should come to your town.

A photo: Is there one perfect shot that explains your city? Can you take a picture of the 30 people who would come? Take it, and link to it!

A drawing: Perhaps you're more inclined to draw it out. Show us why the Mozzers should invade your area.

You can go in on it with several people in your area to try to combine your efforts even. We're open to going pretty much anywhere and who knows, you may even meet some new people!

This is my lame attempt to show there are lots of SEOs in Denver (my hometown). Photo courtesy Rudy Lopez.

2. Complete the nomination form with a link to your content:

3. Send a tweet to share your nomination with the world!

Once the content is created, use the form on the MozCation page to create a nominating tweet. Add the link to your content, the location you'd like us to come to, hit submit, then send the tweet it creates. Bam! You're done. :) And be sure to get friends in your town to tweet (or re-tweet) your link for further consideration!

Deadline for nomination is May 24th for our June 29th event!

We'll have three meetups throughout the year, so this is just your first chance. You're free to nominate your city each time around. For now though, you have a little less than two weeks to get your content created and your nomination in. So what are you waiting for?? Time is ticking away!

The first meetup will be held on Wednesday, June 29th so you won't have to wait too long. :)

We Pick The City

Once the nominations are closed, we'll go through all the entries and pick the most compelling entry. Remember we're open to going to smaller cities, just give us a good reason why we should! Getting retweets on your submission can help, but it's not a necessity. We're making the final call, so if the best content comes from an entry with 2 tweets, it's all good.

What is an SEOmoz Meetup Anyway?

Each time we plan a meetup it's slightly different based on the city we'll be in, event location, etc. But normally it runs 2-3 hours, we like to get 2-4 industry leaders to speak to the group, and there's always plenty of food and drinks to go around. We think these are ideal situations to meet with and give back to the community. Most times we'll give away some kind of swag and we'll always have a discount to try out our PRO membership.

Questions, Questions and More Questions

I know, you have lots of questions right? Check out the official MozCon page for a lot more information and details about the events. But don't think too much about it. :) Create some compelling content telling us why your city is the perfect place for an SEOmoz Meetup, and we'll figure out the rest!

We look forward to the nominations and we'll be retweeting some of the best ones we see come through. Now it's time to get crackin' folks and create something awesome.

New in PRO: Subfolders + Root Domains; Linkscape Update + More

Posted by randfish to SEOmoz News

SEOmoz PRO has been taking some big leaps in improvement, albeit quietly. You may have noticed many small improvements and fewer bugs (though we're still working out some kinks), but you might not have noticed one awesome change to how we support campaigns.

Subdomains, Subfolders & Root Domains Now Included!

Since the web app launched, one of our most requested items (in fact, I think it actually was #1 on the request list) has been the ability to track keyword rankings + crawl data on either a specific subdomain, an entire root domain or a specific subfolder. After many challenging hours of re-writing our crawl and tracking system, the engineering team launched this last week! What does it mean, you ask?

Parts of a URL - Subfolders, Subdomains, Root Domains and Pages

Thus, I could not set up a campaign in SEOmoz PRO for any of the following:

The subdomain "webdesign.about.com" which would only crawl pages and track rankings from that subdomain
The root domain "*.about.com" which would crawl pages and track rankings on any page on the about.com root domain
The subfolder "geography.about.com/climate/" which would limit crawling and rank tracking to pages in that particular folder

For many of us who already use the web app extensively, the best part of this may be the ability to put separate subfolders into separate campaigns. With a 5 campaign, $99 account, you can now track 5 subfolders on the same site, meaning your crawl, keywords tracked, etc. can scale up much better. Those of us who've been frustrated by rank tracking not catching other subdomains on our sites (one of my personal pet peeves) should switch to root domain tracking (yes, sadly, this means having to set up a new campaign) to catch everything.
NOTE: We can't automatically segment your Google Analytics data, so if you want to separate visit numbers into subfolders or subdomains, be sure to create a unique campaign in GA and connect the right one to the app.

Linkscape Update: Index 40

Linkscape's index updated this past weekend with brand new link data crawled in April. Be sure to check OSE + the web app for your new scores.

40,283,351,470 (40.3 billion) URLs
395,648,189 (396 million) Subdomains
115,483,313 (115 million) Root Domains
410,406,731,584 (410 billion) Links
Followed vs. Nofollowed
- 2.24% of all links found were nofollowed
- 57.25% of nofollowed links are internal, 42.75% are external
Rel Canonical - 7.49% of all pages now employ a rel=canonical tag
The average page has 61 links on it (up from 60.88 last index - the first rise in many months)
- 51.64 internal links on average
- 9.36 external links on average

NOTE: We're trying something new in the next Linkscape index (index 41, scheduled for early June) that may have a dramatic impact on some of our metrics. We believe this is the right thing to do and will increase the quality of the resource, but there may be some oddities as it will be the first time we publicly show an index with this structure.

Linkscape Metrics' Latest Correlation w/ Google Rankings

Although we've been tracking Linkscape's correlations with rankings on a semi-regular basis, this is now becoming a key part of how we measure each index. Below are the latest correlation numbers (these use the top 30 results in Google across ~10K keywords):

Correlation w/ Higher Rankings in Google for Index 40

click for larger image

As you can see, Page Authority is still our best correlated metric and the one I'd generally bias toward when doing link opportunity analysis. Domain authority is, likewise, the best correlated domain-based metric, though it's only slightly better than other domain-based data like DmT (of the root domain).
In this index, we also worked with SEO By The Sea's Bill Slawski to help build a more robust, more accurate trusted seed set for MozTrust. Although the correlations with rankings aren't much higher (only +0.01 improvement from our previous index), we're not sure that rank prediction is the best way to actually measure mozTrust. If you've got feedback about the new mT or DmT scores, please do let us know - my rough observation was that it seemed at least as good, possibly better than before.

More Improvements to PRO

As long as I've still got your attention, I thought I'd call out a couple of other smaller improvements that went out last week as well:

New help guides: Find yourself stuck in the web app and need a hand, click help at the top right of the page to learn how to get the most out of the feature or report. We've also just released this awesome PDF guide.
Faster loading Google Analytics data. You'll notice that the traffic data on the ranking summary and history now load right away. You can also see this with the weekly data on the traffic data tab, and soon with the monthly data too!
.csv exports from the ranking summary reports now include the ranking URLs.

Coming Soon:

A big update to our SEO toolbar for Firefox with a bunch of cool new capabilities for analyzing pages and SERPs (with Chrome to follow). BTW - speaking of the MozBar, it does work with the new FF 4; if you're having any trouble, just re-install!
Some brand new PRO pricing and plans, providing some great new options for those seeking more campaigns and keywords.
The much-anticipated SERPs Analysis tool (no certain deadline, but probably before July).

That's actually not all - there's some other big features on the way, but we have to keep those secret (particularly the launch of something very exciting at Day 1 of MozCon).
If you've got feedback for PRO, don't be shy! Use that "feedback" button on the left-hand side of the app or leave a note on our feature request forum and tell us what's bugging you, what you want and all your hopes & dreams (for SEO tools that is).

Competitor Analysis for Linkbuilding: A Guide for People who Hate Linkbuilding

I hate linkbuilding. In my perfect world, linkbuilding is done scalably via widgets, with a big budget to promote a perfect product. This is pretty much never the case, so manual linkbuilding needs to be done
In January, Michael Martinez posted a long rant about why competitor analysis for link building is a waste of time. My post is about how to get more out of competitor analysis for link building than just links. The extra bit of juice I get out of the process is high level business intelligence. This is my basic process for competitor based linkbuilding, with specific examples from various live linkbuilding campaigns.
I use Open Site Explorer for the link analysis as well as to measure my rate and quality of link acquisition.
1. Find your REAL Competitors
When working with a client, I always ask them who their main competitors are. In most cases they over estimate some brands and underestimate others. They often think only of brick and mortar companies and forget web-only players and content aggregators.
I take a basket of 100 keywords that I think are likely to be the most ROI beneficial to the client and check competition by SERP Saturation.
Example of SERP Saturation for a basket of travel industry keywords

Often this process throws up new sites that no one was aware of, but that have been quietly doing very well
I choose three top competitors and load them into the SEOmoz Campaign Manager. Here is the real data from my UK train industry campaign

2. Understand what Types of Links you Need
I create a range of graphs per competitor from the granular competitor link analysis data. This allows me to see what type of links I need.

When I see that I have all followed links and no nofollowed links, I know I can target low quality, exact match links with little risk of penalties. In the example above, you can see I need to concentrate on getting links from a wide number of sources.
3. Create a Baseline for Measurement
This is very simple. I just record the granular link data from my site and 3 competitors into Excel whenever the SEOmoz crawler updates.
Hotel Industry example:

I can get a very easy view-over-time on what is and has happened to backlinks. Once this data is in excel, its quick to create graphs for visualisations and reporting.
Train industry example:

It is very easy to see we have a significantly increased the number of incoming links in a short space of time.
These graphs keep clients happy but there is more going on behind the scenes.
It is very important to monitor the Domain Authority and homepage Page Authority to make sure that your linkbuilding does not gain links at the expense of reducing your other domain-wide authority metrics.
4. Export a Competitor's Backlinks into Excel
I keep only the URL, Page Authority and Domain Authority columns. Add a column for Action, Category and Notes. The Category column is the real value add.

Sort the list into 100 unique domains, and then by page authority. Then visit each site on the list.
In the Action column, record the action you take (UNO means Unobtainable, I don't think we can get a link etc) In the Category column, categorise the website.
This is the list I use for the train industry:

News - Quality news site
Blog - Personal writeup about that company specifically
Reference Site - Write up that mentions the company as a reference or resource
Owned Other site - a different website that they own
Twitter - I will follow them with the Twitter account
Student Site - specific for each industry
Timebased Event - specific for each industry

A lot of links are from student sites and a lot are timebased events like past conferences, so I make a specific category for them.
When I email the webmaster, I keep track of the date I sent it, the person's name, the email address I sent it to and any other notes like phone numbers.
I keep an email folder for each linkbuilding campaign that contains all the replies.
I got three great tips from Frank at www.orchidbox.com while writing this post.

Check the whois email address if there is no email on the site. A bonus here is that these people are less likely to be being spammed, so your email may be received without preconceived scepticism on their part.
Add a column for whether the site uses Adsense or not. This can allow you to target PPC ads at high quality websites in your niche.
Add a column for whether the site takes article submissions or not. If you can't get a free link, you can at least write a decent guest post for your link.

5. A Linkbuilding Email Template
Keep it short and simple but do all the important bits.
----------------------
Hi there
Would you add www.clientsite.co.uk/ to your page http://www.yoursite.com/uk/en/careers/student/offices?
They have discounts for buying online and no credit card charges and serve the area your users live in.
Cheers
Stephen
----------------------

Informal, personal where I can get the recipient's name form the website
Not a lot to read, tells them exactly what I want and where I want it (i.e. Don't make them think!)
Tells them why giving me a link is good for their users
Tells them why giving me a link makes their site better
Doesn't make any wild promises on my site, or suggest anything spammy
Doesn't take a lot of my time to replicate or personalise, I can shift a lot of these in a day if needed

Don't overthink this. If you are in doubt, just send the email. I have had PR 9 backlinks using this method. Follow up if you need to.
6. Gather your Business Intelligence
Now that the link building is done, segmentation is where you get extra business intelligence. I have two extra columns in my Excel. The example below is from an analysis of links pointing to the www.thetrainline.com.
Actions
Describes the action taken - already have a link, sent email, called, filled form, don’t want etc.

This gives me a good overview of how my links compare to theirs.
Site type
Describes the type of site it is. This changes slightly depending on the site and vertical, there is no hard and fast rule.

This tells me where they get the bulk of their links from and can be used to guide the next phase of linkbuilding strategy as well as in this case, feeding back into actual product development.
7. Turn Business Intelligence into Strategy
Here is some actual feedback to the client based on link analysis of The Trainline.
Geography One of the main reason links are not obtainable, is that The Trainline operates on a larger geographic scale than [client] and therefore gets a larger numbers of targeted links from local organisations. A lot of websites use The Trainline site as a single reference point when they just want to list one place to go to look for cheap tickets. [client] cannot compete as they do not have comprehensive geographical coverage.
Student Student websites are a great source of natural links and are a good fit for our product. They are also very price conscious and could respond well to a value message.
From this I would suggest

Linkbuilding to focus on student websites
Building a separate, country wide, student focused ticket selling domain. This will be incredibly powerful in achieving links not only from education institutions but also being available to use as a countrywide reference point by newspapers, blogs and other references

8. Know When to Move On
I normally do this for the three main competitors and then stop.
By that time I've done three sites I have good feel for the link landscape in the sector and have sponged up most of the available links. Each site after this brings diminishing returns.
That's how I do it. Having a plan to follow makes it easy to sell and less painful to do.

5 Suggestions for Google Suggest

Wait, what were those suggested searches? I just spewed Theraflu onto the Mac. Who am I kidding, those queries aren't helpful at all! In fact many are horribly offensive. If you want to replicate those searches today, you might not find them because Google has since refined their autocomplete algorithm and in some cases perhaps applied an offensive filter. If I lost anyone with that last sentence, take a minute to head over to Search Engine Land and read Danny Sullivan's enormous post on how Google's autocomplete suggestions work. Or you can read the 60 second overview here:
From what we've been able to determine, the following are the primary contributing factors to Google's Suggested Search algorithm:

SEARCH VOLUME - There's a minimum threshold for popularity and once reached the suggested search will be triggered. How "sticky" a suggestion is depends on whether the popularity is long-term or short-term.
PERSONALIZATION - IP address is definitely being pulled, as well as, the user's own search history, the country of the search engine itself (e.g. Google.fr vs Google.com) and the language.
QUERY DESERVES FRESHNESS (QDF) - This is the short-term popularity filter, which can pop within an hour as seen with Osama bin Laden's death and on Monday, news of Meredith Vieira's departure from The Today Show, which showed a massive surge in popularity for her name immediately after the announcement:

What followed were two new suggested searches for a search that starts with just [meredith v...]:

MISSPELLINGS & VARIATIONS - Google will display common misspellings. This can be seen in recent news on the discovery of [Rita Chretien] and her missing husband:
AUTOMATED RESULTS - Google displays automated results often for queries like flight status, local time zones, area codes, package tracking, certain answers, definitions, calculations, plus currency and unit conversions.
BLOCKED SEARCHES -

Q: Does Google exclude any users' searches from autocomplete? A: The search queries that you see as part of autocomplete are a reflection of the search activity of all web users. Just like the web, the search queries presented may include silly or strange or surprising terms and phrases. While we always strive to neutrally and objectively reflect the diversity of content on the web (some good, some objectionable), we also apply a narrow set of removal policies for pornography, violence, hate speech, and terms that are frequently used to find content that infringes copyrights.

It looks like Google (and the other search engines with autocompletion) have a lot of secret sauce behind this feature and it sounds pretty nifty. What could possibly go wrong?
According to a lawsuit Google lost in Italy for libel and an appealed ruling in France for offensive language, there are some very unhappy campers about suggested searches. When the plaintiffs' names came up in Google with "fraud" or "scam" attached, this feature went from convenient to libelous and costly.
They're not alone.
Take a peek at Google's own Webmaster forums where you'll find a number of cries for help and frustrated threats of litigation. I can personally attest to the fact that 40% of the clients at Outspoken Media come from online reputation management and in many cases the business or individual has been harmed by a competitor, a single crazy customer, a crazier ex or worse a well-optimized negative review on a "consumer advocacy" site built solely to extort money and/or generate income through AdSense.
Many reading this post will adamantly believe that if a negative review was resolved positively then what is there to worry about? The problem in my eyes (and those of our clients) is that potential customers are alarmed when they see [company name scam]. In industries with a high level of competition and little brand awareness, customers aren't going to take the time to investigate further. When clients have followed Google's own advice for reputation management and that can't turn the tide of suggested searches, there's nothing left to do but see their business get damaged or resort to other means. More frustrating is that Google isn't publicly addressing concerns. They did temporarily block [scam] and [ripoff] searches at the end of March, but after two weeks of hesitant celebration they were back.
SEOs are getting more vocal about the need for change. Not because we're spammers, but because we're fighting on behalf of clients and those who can't afford our services, but read our blogs everyday looking for guidance and a way to solve a very real threat to their livelihood. So, without further ado:

5 Suggestions for Google Suggest

Note - Some of the following may be controversial. These aren't meant as a to-do list, but a start to a much-needed conversation. Let's try not to get into the tired black vs white hat debate or gangsta-style snitch threats. Please do take a minute to share your recommendations and findings in the comments below.

Develop a support area - This might be a unique area under the Google Webmaster Central forums or something as simple as more actionable advice than the previous post on managing your reputation through search. It could be even simpler by taking the form of a public response to the many questions already being posted.
Prompt a Google Webmaster Central message - Setup an alert for webmasters similar to the malware alert and other automated messages in GWC that triggers a message like "Google has detected that your website is ranking for [your name scam]." Link this message to the aforementioned support area or the tool mentioned below, so that webmasters can take necessary actions to report or repair the findings.
Provide a reporting tool - I know this is going to be controversial, but hear me out. This already exists in Google Places as a feature for reporting spam in a listing. Google says the tool should be used if a:
- Listing contains incorrect information or spam
- Place is permanently closed
- Place has another listing
- Place doesn’t exist or is private
- Some photos, reviews, or details belong to a different place
This report would be subject to abuse, but I'd like to think that by placing it within Webmaster Central there would be less so, especially if Google invested in the upkeep of the support section. I don't know that I would personally even use it, but it would make a lot of clients happy to feel like Google was listening.
Rely on reputable third party partners - Instead of making small businesses spin their wheels with fruitless attempts at a resolution with a dozen scraped "consumer sites" give more value to the reputable advocacy sites. I know, another controversial topic! Everyone has their opinion of the Better Business Bureau or Yelp, but when it comes down to it, those are real businesses with contact information, clearly established resolution guidelines and public representatives. I'd much rather focus my efforts there and I already know they have more effective filters for *real* reviews.
Improve the algorithm - This may seem simple, but if it was the post would be moot. I'm not a genius, so I'll let those guys figure this one out, but there has to be more consideration for what the actual search results pages look like, less value placed on popular search volume and more consideration for the sites causing those searches.

Those are my suggestions for Google Suggest! There are only so many ways to write [company name scam] content with a positive spin or tempt fate by turning to other solutions. Leave your ideas in the comments and while we're at it, maybe we can find a way to solve world hunger.
Also, in case you haven't already signed up, Rand, Jen, Avi Wilensky and I will be presenting in New York THIS Thursday. If you're in the city, come out for some fantastic insight and company.
About Rhea: Rhea Drysdale is the CEO of Outspoken Media, which specializes in SEO consulting, link development, social media strategies and reputation management. When she isn't fighting trademarks for the SEO industry, she is She-Ra on Twitter.

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May 25, 2011

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5. A Picture is Worth 1000 Clicks

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8. Quotes

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