Know Your Audience

Most, for example, check and make sure that a site has a decent PageRank, that it has a good amount of traffic and that the subject matter and writing style of the site are a good fit both for the writer and for the site they wish to link to from their bio line.

However, there is an additional step that many forget to take. Namely, they forget to check and make sure that the audiences between the two sites overlap, especially in terms of the nations they come from.

This causes many guest bloggers to write for sites with completely different audiences than they are targeting, making their efforts largely a waste of time.

Fortunately, this is an easy mistake to avoid if one is simply willing to check Alexa before agreeing to write a new guest post.

How to Check Alexa for Audience Location

When you check Alexa for virtually any site, you are automatically taken to its traffic rank page, which has a “Global Traffic Rank” for the site. Unfortunately, this information can be fairly misleading as it is possible for a site to rank very high in a smaller Internet market, such as the Philippines, but still only get a small percentage of their traffic there.

Instead, one needs to click the “Audience” tab and then scroll down where they will find “Visitors By Country”. That will give the raw data as to what percentage of the site’s visitors come from which countries.

Though you won’t have the actual visitor data for each nation, you can easily estimate that by looking at Alexa’s estimated traffic data and calculating what that percentage would mean.

All in all, it’s a pretty simple fact to check, on my made difficult by the fact it is well-hidden on a tab few people click.

Why This is Important

The reason you want to check this is because you need to know if the site you are writing for will bring you any SEO or branding value.

For example, if you’re targeting a U.S.-based audience, a blog with less than 20% of its audience from the US, most likely, is a very poor choice. Many of the popular guest blogging blogs I looked at had more than 70% Indian and Pakistan audience.

Checking to see where a site gets its traffic from is a critical step when looking at any blog for a potential guest blogging post as you don’t want to spend time and energy creating content for a site that will provide you with little to no benefit.

If you own a US based website you should remember that a link from a non US site is valued much less than a link from a US site.

All in all, it takes only a few seconds to get this important background information and it can save you hours of negotiation and writing time getting a guest posting spot on a site that isn’t going to help you in the least.

This is a guest post by Lior Levin who works for an online task management startup and also advises to iAdvize, a live support tool for websites.

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Why Your Business Should Use a Blog

There are wonderful blogs out there just waiting for a loving author to give them a chance – and content. As you can see, this is a disturbing issue that we need to face as a society. I thought about heading up my local chapter of BAAB (Businesses Against Abandoned Blogs), but I decided to write this blog post instead.

Now, down to business- all companies, large or small, should have a blog on their Web site. But what do you do with that blog? If you own a business, then you are hopefully very passionate about what you do or sell, right? Ok, so blog about it!

Yup, it’s as simple as that. The No. 1 rule of writing is to write what you know. But the No. 1 rule of Internet marketing is to engage your audience with something free and valuable, like information. If you can turn your blog into a go-to information center for your readers, they will want to read it.

Readers may then start to read your blog every day and pass the word around that your blog is great resource for learning about (fill in the blank). The goal is to create a trust factor with your readers by offering them good, insightful and helpful information. After trust is achieved, readers may venture to other parts of your Web site and, eventually, they may buy something.

Luckily, the benefits of blogging don’t stop there. Your search engine rankings are also more likely to improve with daily blog posts, since fresh and relevant content is a metric that search engine crawlers look for. It makes sense, because the search engines know that people do not want to read old, outdated Web sites or content.

So they do not send their searchers there. As a result, the more fresh and original content you post on your blog, the more authority you demand with the search engines. In fact, some companies that don’t have the time to write daily blog posts for their site can simply order their blog posts from a certain SEO company that offers custom content creation – what a great idea!

A huge mistake that many uninformed people make while trying to get in on this trendy action is blogging for other people. By ‘other people’ I mean other Web sites that serve as an aggregate for blogs. Basically, you sign up on a Web site and they give you a space on that site to start a blog.

What you are essentially doing is giving away fantastic, fresh and original content to another Web site, which they use to keep their rankings up. Instead, you want to be sure that you are writing on your own blog which is installed on your own Web site. That way you get to reap the benefits of your own writing and improve the rankings of your own Web site.

Here are some great examples for a blog, depending on what industry you are involved with:

-          Do you own a hair salon? Make your blog the go-to place for learning about hair tips and tricks, latest hair styles and how to get healthy hair.

-          Do you sell clothes? Blog about the hottest trends of the season, how to pair the right shoes with the right accessories or how to spot fake designer bags.

-          Do you sell SEO? Blog about easy SEO steps that the average business owner can take to improve their rankings. After reading enough posts, someone might decide to call you up and inquire about SEO services…. Hmm……

-          Are you a car mechanic? Blog about the importance of car maintenance, when to change your oil and where the best car washes are around your area.

The key to blogging for the purpose of attracting potential clients involves several things. First, you need to make sure that the information or opinions that you are offering are interesting, insightful or helpful for your readers. Then you need to make sure that you are writing in such a manner that everyone can understand it, but not be bored with it. You don’t have to insert every semicolon and you don’t have to use long words. But you also don’t want to write something that may make some people think English is your second language.

Finally, don’t hesitate to drop subtle incentives for your readers to actually pick up the phone and ask questions or inquire about services. For example, if I was writing a blog post for a search engine optimization company, this is where I would insert a friendly reminder that any further questions can be answered in detail by calling us at 312.794.7883. I would also remind my audience that we offer a free Web site evaluation via webinar to determine your ranking potential in search engines and to learn more about SEO.

Of course, after reading my blog post, you are anxious to get a blog of your own and start blogging! But what do you do if you don’t have a blog? You can ask your Web site developer to install a blog for you or you can give us a call and ask us what the simplest way to install a blog on your site is? We highly recommend WordPress, which is a popular (and free!) blogging platform that works well in tandem with SEO Plugins; but every site is made differently, so this doesn’t apply for everyone.

At the end of the day, you want to be sure that you are having fun with your blog and that your readers are having fun too! They should learn something new or insightful from your posts and they should possibly get a laugh or two out of it, as well. Whichever direction you decide to take your blog, just be sure to promote it like none other. Blast links from all your social media sites and have your friends or employees do the same.

Anymore questions? You know where to find me. In the meantime, happy blogging!

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Google PageRank Update December 2009

For many of you engaging SEO, this is the time where quality trumps quantity and lean and structured siloed websites built on the solid semantic premise of context and coherence are outranking link laden behemoths who relied purely on off page ranking factor alone.

Vacillations in search results are typical, but the main thing to remember is it’s all about exposure and conversion. With that in mind, consider the more pages you have ranking for a broader array of keywords, the more long-tail, mid-tail and ambient traffic you can attract.

The more traffic your page rank for, the more opportunity to segment that traffic to a conversion funnel exists. Exposure is indifferent; it’s all about timing, impulse and emotion when it comes to search, but positioning plays a significant role in click through rates.

Deep links (links to individual pages) are critical in distinguishing your content in contrast to the countless websites that overlook building or acquiring links to pages “other than the homepage” and is a prerequisite to creating a strong online presence.

To rank well, all a page really needs is (a) to receive links from the primary navigation (b) to be close to the root folder (c) to have a few contextual links (links surrounded by relevant copy) to each specific page with the keywords it intends to rank for or (d) to have 3-5 deep links from other websites with relevant anchor text.

If a site concentrates on any of those 4 fundamental pillars of search engine optimization, the results when compounded are phenomenal. Page rank is not an indicator of page strength as much as it is an indicator of inclusion.

So, don’t lose sleep over a gain or loss of a few green pixels. The thing to remember is, rankings are by the page, and before you can rank, getting in the index is imperative. Therefore, think of the page rank metric as a method to determine how well your site architecture is structured, and use it as a blueprint to get more link flow deeper in a site.

Eventually those internal pages that pass link flow and have page rank are like an internal dynamo. The more cylinders you have to work with, the more you can segue that ranking credit when you need it to a new site segment, subfolder or subdomain to increase relevance and rankings when you need it.

-Jeffrey

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Aside from keyword selection and appealing to the right audience, here is our brief synopsis of “the optimization process” in this throw-back post from the past…

-Jeffrey

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SEO is Like Chess

In search engine optimization, there are vast combinations of possibility hinged on the precipice of relevance, yet that alone is not enough to prevail. In the real world, there is competition, “real competition” and that competition “much like yourself” wants to rank in the #1 position for hundreds of high conversion / high search volume keywords and key phrases.

Depending on how broad your vision and ability to anticipate your opponents next move, creates the contrast of rankings, reward and conversion. If the goal of SEO is to be seen, then priceless SEO strategies such as this one provide adequate insight using the interesting analogy of chess.

-Jeffrey

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Then after reflecting a bit, it made me realize that perception shapes reality and there was more to that statement that the first impression (even though it hit a nerve just hearing it). From this perspective there are Marketing people, Administrative people, Strategic People, Management People and Finance People and through the hodgepodge of the synergies they create, well, that is business.

Like any business, diversity is needed to avoid the pitfalls of the path less traveled. You can start from scratch or learn from the mistakes of others, however regardless of one of the other the synergy remains.

Slice it any way you like, planning, presentation and back-end support (sales, marketing or administration) or everything in between is the focus for a thriving business with vision. However, having the means to fulfill it means you need specialists in order to excel on all levels.

The takeaway was a reminder that, even though this is our beloved industry, SEO is just one piece of the puzzle. Just like it doesn’t matter how many visitors you drive to an ugly site, without conversion its a flop.

Similarly, without proper SEO or an effective SEO company, no one will find the site to begin with, unless your advertising through sponsored means like PPC or display advertising.

The bottom line is always about performance, without it your just playing with fragmented concepts rather than grasping the entire landscape which leave holes in your game that others can exploit.

Just like an idiom that rings true, don’t get to comfortable at the top, similarly the message to get back to basics, take a bird’s eye view of your business model from time to time and don’t be afraid to learn or try new things.

Speaking of which, I can’t wait to meet, greet and share more from the vast array of SEO & SEM Experts attending SES (search engine strategies) which ultimately are responsible for taking search to the next level (when not attending conferences). Stay tuned for more gems from SES Chicago 2008.

-Jeffrey

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He is link to a post from the past to provide insight on the value of SEO copywriting. Just remember, web pages are for humans, but sculpting or editing copy for search engines can’t hurt either. Just don’t lose the value along the way.

-Jeffrey

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Can Editing Your Pages Produce Organic Rankings?

A website is a work in progress and your own pages represent on of the most underutilized assets in acquiring and defending a stable position across hundreds or thousands of keywords organically. The premise is to edit and revive your content after it has acquired a degree of authority.

You may think, is it necessary to edit entire volumes of content, probably not. In fact most websites have the concentrated link flow for the entire website in 10% of the pages and by adjusting the content and links on those pages, you can pull new pages into the top 10 spotlight. You just have to know where to look to find that 10%.

In addition, depending on your objective, you can fortify your websites rankings drastically from adding fresh links to new content from seasoned pages at any time without invoking a penalty from search engines.

Once you understand this fundamental building block, you can literally start at the bottom of the keyword chain and virtually gobble your way up to the most competitive keywords from gaining topical relevance and keyword stemming as a by-product of website authority.

Each page is like a seedling, once nurtured from traffic, internal links and time (if the balance is optimal) each of those pages grow roots and provide an overlapping continuity for your website.

By managing the process of keywords stemming over time, the topic of the website and the type of traffic you attract and engage, it is possible to create a sphere of influence so pronounced, that search engines appoint your site as an authority.

Depending on the threshold of each industry, some keywords fall easier than others, but ultimately keywords are only a means to an end. They are just mechanisms that people use in order to bridge the gap between their subjective whims and the urge to satisfy them.

Have a great thought about cosmetics? then your going to search for something to satisfy that craving. So, having said that, keywords are potential avenues for driving customers that convert to your pages, but without continuity they will not stick around long enough to make a difference.

Long term vision should be applied if you are serious about the longevity of your website. Content is something that only rewards a website, there is no penalty for creating and managing structured content. In fact, quite the contrary, search engines reward clear and concise information.

The key is to balance the educational needs of your audience with the value it inherently has. Not all people want to be sold (initially), in order to get there for most, it requires credibility. What greater opportunity to once again give search engines what they want as well as attract organic / natural traffic as well.

Revising aged content with fresh links (to other pages in your site or from other sites) is one sure-fire method for inviting the spiders to dine on your pages. If they like the new flavor, they will surely come back again and again to see what is new and crawl your website deeper.

More pages in the index equate to a higher percentage of pages that can pass value and pull other pages up like the buddy system. Many often overlook that chronology dictates that momentum is something that increases gradually over time.

Sites that sit atop their industry invariably had a beginning. I can assure you that there was a time when any site (which is now an authority) barely ranked for anything other than their own name. However, as time progressed and the search engine algorithm became more familiar with the site in question, the relationship fostered and eventually credibility and rankings were bestowed as a result.

A seasoned SEO company or one skilled in SEO optimization knows how to produce this effect through carefully collaborating all of the intricate details involved. The process involves creating and managing a web 2.0 buzz, having stable content that reinforces itself and attracting a larger more targeted audience that is already looking for the benefits your site has to offer.

The Process of Developing Authority

It is merely a matter of time, opportunity and exposure that dictate when and how a site goes from a virtual unknown site to a resource or hub worth noting and sharing with others.

The process is rather straightforward:

• create quality content that encompasses a theme [this may mean hundred or thousands of pages over time]
• harvest every opportunity to reinforce your own pages with pages that have gained a reputation in search engines
• write for readers not search engines so you ensure that your content is engaging and useful and not just manufactured for rankings

You may wonder, in reference to number (2) above, how do you know when a page has gained authority? The answer, it pulls its own weight in search engines and shows up for multiple variations of broad match and exact match keywords found on that page. If you can find a page with 2 or 3 keywords from a title in exact match, then the process has started.

If you can find a page ranking in the top 10 results in search engines for multiple topics for something briefly mentioned on a page, then that page has gained authority and can be utilized as a hub page to spread link flow and rankings to the rest of your site.

The power of editing old content for continuity has never made more sense. Here is a tip you can use to piece together the wiki effect manually. Do this with enough pages and you will have a very strong website to contend with.

• First, check your server logs or analytics for top performing keywords
• If you see related keywords rising in engagement time, lower bounce rates or higher conversion, look for ways to seed other pages with their good fortune
• Run the page with the best conversion through a keyword density tool
• Then, find the keywords with the highest density and co-occurrence on that page, and then link them to related pages attempting to rank for similar keywords (you can use our SEO Tool for free).

Once you know which pages have the strongest on page factors for specific keywords, you can use that align and escalate other pages with a similar theme through using the power of internal linking and relevant keyword anchor text.

Thanks for visiting the SEO Design Solutions Blog, where you can find useful SEO tips and tactics for competitive search engine positioning.

-Jeffrey

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Does Crawl Rate and Crawl Frequency Matter:

To answer this bluntly, absolutely. The more topical pages you have referencing your theme (topic of website) or the more pages you have to fortify or reinforce your main topic, the more relevance your pages can garner for those related keywords.

This alone can translate into exponential traffic when you consider the difference between a page teetering on being deindexed (removed or demoted) and a very popular page that continually funnels visitors is reputation. That reputation is impacted greatly by the way your content is deep linked and if that content is discovered by search engines and deemed worthy.

A website with a faster crawl rate has the opportunity to introduce content more frequently and thus reinvigorate languishing pages to nurture them back to health in less time. Websites with authority often get spidered and indexed in a few hours. More pages in the index (if optimized) equals more opportunities to attract more visitors.

Granted, SEO is not always complicated, it is the combination of the simple underlying factors that contribute to the overall process that should have equal importance to any webmaster or aspiring business.

Post frequency (the rate in which you add or change content) toggles search engines to revisit your content. The value of re-optimization (making tweaks and adjustments to refine on page factors) is a never-ending process to refine performance.

How this deep link recrawl will affect existing rankings in Google is unknown, what is known however is by deep linking (even though it may take longer to get discovered) is one of the most valuable strategies you can implement to shift the viability of your websites credentials to search engine spiders.

The Googlebots mission is simple, to leave no page or no link behind, at least for an initial inspection. You never know where or how your pages will be discovered and you can never truly control the extent of how search engines evaluate your content.

The conclusion is, don’t leave anything out there you wouldn’t want to share, so keep a tidy server (redirect pages that are dead weight) and continually refine your theme to overcome any adversity of off page reputation that may hinder your exposure.

-Jeffrey

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Why take the risk of testing weak or lackluster copy for your landing pages, just do a search for a related term and see which broad match term gets served up from the semantic algorithm search engines use to display PPC ads to match your query.

Something about being forced to truncate multiple streams of thought into one tiny sentence either brings out the best in people, or makes them resort to a hybrid language based on English.

In all seriousness, chances are, someone spent a small fortune to find those magic words laced with the power to get the click, and low and behold you can build on the theme if it looks promising, from just paying attention to keyword synergy.

Mind you, I am not suggesting plagiarism, what I am suggesting is bonafide market research *on PPC’s tab, which your competitors have graciously paid on your behalf. So, just don’t say that your competition never gave you anything. A healthy sparring match always brings out the best in us and ensures we thrive to outperform the opposition.

I am one of the philosophy of, why rent when you can own, and despite my attempts to rationalize why PPC is superior, I just cannot grasp the connotation personally. Some SEO’s like myself are just organic at heart I suppose. However, no need to throw away your competitions hard earned research they paid to outrank you. Now, with a bit of ingenuity on your part, you can return the favor.

As an example I typed in SEO in Google (which we happen to rank for organically) and looked at the advertisement at the top of the sponsored results and decided to take a snapshot.

Appears others feel free to borrow each others call to action, just look at the shingle analysis using quotes for the phrase “Ethical SEO That Really Works Our Clients Achieve Top 10 Results” whom several SEO companies are claiming as the original source.

If you look at the results, it appears that Spy Fu is already on the scene and has extracted the multiple sites “borrowing” phrases from each other. Spy Fu also allows you to see what your competition bid on in the past as well and serves as a decent “PPC research tool” for this tactic as well.

The takeaway, consider integrating a key point such as this into a description tag on a page optimized for the term you searched for (not word for word, but you get the gist). Descriptions honed through meta tags still work for conversion, just make sure to add enough relevant terms from the focal point of the page to get traction as well.

A visitor still has to click your result, and if the text in your snippet in search engines lacks a call to action, being at the top of the page is not going to help you. Emotion, relevance and appeal are equally as important.

-Jeffrey

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