1. Optimizing for a Bad Website

SEO is a long term process that takes time and resources. The goal of an SEO campaign is to increase website traffic to improve conversion rates. SEO efforts will help to get more visitors to the site, but then the rest of the work is up to the website itself. If it looks bad, has a confusing navigation, or doesn’t have clear call to actions it’s a problem. Before starting an SEO campaign you need to determine whether your website is worth the effort. If it’s not, concentrate on improving that first.

2. Not Conducting Keyword Research

Many website owners make the mistake of assuming that they know how their target audience is searching. In most cases, they are wrong. Keyword research needs to be conducted for every page of the website, since each page serves a different purpose and can be an entry point to a website. Using the wrong keywords can result in getting the wrong kind of visitors that won’t convert. Traffic is good, but sales and leads from qualified visitors are much better.

3. Greedy Link Building

Links are a huge part of SEO. The search engine spiders crawl links to determine website relevancy and trust. It’s tempting to get greedy when it comes to link building. After all there are plenty of advertisements for thousands of links at a low price. But are those links really valuable? Not at all. It’s the quality of a link that really matters, not the quantity.

4. Creating Poor Content

Without content, there is nothing to optimize and publish online, whether it is on site or on other web properties. Content is what ranks in the search engines and helps build links. However, in order to do so the content needs to be good! Publishing lots of low quality content that is only vaguely related to the industry just to get some links will backfire. Focus on the needs of the target audience and create content with that in mind.

5. Not Using Social Media

Social media and SEO continue to converge online. One strategy should not be implemented without the other in mind now that the search engines incorporate social signals into the ranking algorithms.

Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing, and he writes a weekly SEO column for Daily Blog Tips. Visit the company website to find more about its services, or call 781-999-1222 to get more information.

The whole story can be found on this Search Engine Land post: Google’s Jaw-Dropping Sponsored Post Campaign For Chrome.

Anyway after the controversy was out there many people started asking (some demanding…) whether or not Google would penalize its own website for the sponsored link violation.

Guess what? Google did it.

The Chrome homepage used to be the first or second result for the term “browser”, but if you search for it now you probably won’t find it anywhere on the first page. Here’s Google’s statement about the case:

We’ve investigated and are taking manual action to demote www.google.com/chrome and lower the site’s PageRank for a period of at least 60 days.
We strive to enforce Google’s webmaster guidelines consistently in order to provide better search results for users.

While Google did not authorize this campaign, and we can find no remaining violations of our webmaster guidelines, we believe Google should be held to a higher standard, so we have taken stricter action than we would against a typical site.

In my opinion Google is actually coming out stronger out of the whole debacle. For one thing it’s giving out a signal that no one is special when it comes to search rankings and penalties, and that it’s willing to walk its talk.

What do you think?

PPC is also known as paid search. PPC ads appear in the sponsored section of a search result. The websites that appear in this section are there because the advertiser was the highest bidder for the keyword or keyword phrase that was used. Each time the ad is clicked on, the advertiser pays the search engine. Hence the label, “pay per click”. The key to a successful PPC campaign is to target the right keywords that will result in not only traffic, but conversions. Since the website owner is essentially paying for this traffic, it might as well be worth something to them. The costs associated with PPC can be extremely high, especially in a competitive industry.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of making changes to the website and other content across the web that will attract the search engine spiders and improve organic, or natural, web page ranking. SEO isn’t considered to be paid search because no money is exchanged between the website owner and the search engine, but there are certainly costs associated with SEO. SEO is a lengthy process that is never really “over”. It starts with industry, competitor, and keyword research. Next is on-site optimization which is followed by ongoing link building. Good link building requires time and resources to create quality content and share it on the web on a regular basis. Many website and business owners simply don’t have the time or resources. Therefore, they need to hire an in house SEO staff member or outsource the work to a trusted agency or consultant. Good SEO is paid for, just in a less direct manner than PPC.

Since web users have become more savvy over the years and understand the difference between an ad and an organic result, there are arguments that SEO is better than PPC. The truth is that both strategies have their place. While SEO is extremely important, it takes a long time to get onto that first page of a search result for targeted keywords. Some websites never even make it to that first page. PPC, while expensive, can ensure that your brand is seen on page 1. Even if the ad isn’t clicked on, it’s still improving brand visibility. As time goes on and an organic presence improves, it’s possible to scale back on PPC but it doesn’t need to be eliminated entirely. Having both a paid and organic presence on the same page really establishes relevancy for particular keyword searches.

Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing, and he writes a weekly SEO column for Daily Blog Tips. Visit the company website to find more about its services, or call 781-999-1222 to get more information.

1. Ramp up Your Content Marketing

Content is a huge part of SEO. After all, without content what is there to optimize? Obviously it takes time and resources to create quality content on a regular basis and that’s why many businesses falter in this area. They either don’t have the manpower, the time, or even the skills to do it right. In order to really be effective it’s important to create a blog and submit content to it daily, submit guest blog posts and articles to industry websites, create videos and upload them to video sharing sites, and create other “link bait” materials such as infographics and free whitepapers, guides, or E-books. Content needs to be taken seriously and content writers should be hired or the work should be outsourced to a trusted writer in order to really give your SEO campaign the boost that it needs.

2. Get Active in Social Media

Social media is no longer just a brand building tool. Social media activity is now a search engine algorithm ranking factor. The search engines rank web pages and web content based on trust and social media signals such as Likes, shares, tweets, +1’s and more establish that trust amongst social media users. If content is shared frequently, the search engines take note. Of course, in order to achieve these social signals it’s important to create social media accounts and keep them active. There’s no use in setting up a brand page and then not using it. Use social media to have a conversation with followers and promote content that they will find useful and that they will be willing to share. While the social media “Big 4” (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+) are important, there are numerous niche social networks that shouldn’t be ignored. In addition, social bookmarking sites can also drive traffic to your website and build your brand visibility.

3. Make Connections

A robust link building campaign aims to create links on related web properties across the web. These links can be created by submitting quality content to industry sites and other industry blogs. Of course, in order to be granted access to these sites it’s necessary to build a positive reputation and form relationships with others in the industry or in related industries over time. Take the first step by introducing yourself via social media or initiate a conversation by commenting on one of their blog posts. These relationships are extremely valuable and can lead to new linking and business opportunities over time.

Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing, and he writes a weekly SEO column for Daily Blog Tips. Visit the company website to find more about its services, or call 781-999-1222 to get more information.

If you don’t know the story, Blekko is a search engine which the goal of filtering spam from its results. They do that by using a list of trusted sites and then crawling the web from those sites as starting points.

Another difference is the use of slashtags, which help users to filter and customize their search queries.

It sure would take more than that to make me switch away from Google as far as searching goes, but Blekko is adding a really nice set of tools for SEOs and webmasters.

For example, if you search for a domain name followed by “/SEO” you’ll get a pretty detailed report about that site.

Information includes total number of backlinks, origin of those backlinks, possible duplicate content around the web, number of pages indexed and so on.

As for the number of backlinks listed Blekko has one of the most accurate counts I have seen in a while, so check it out.