Cleaning Up Bird Poop After The Google Penguin Came Home to Roost

Squeezed By Penguin-Cum-Boa Constrictor

Google has once again raised hell at the SERPs with yet another update to the infamous Panda. The new update is called Penguin. Funny how the big G has a way of associating the most radical and far reaching updates to their algorithm with the most harmless animals. To those whose businesses have been drastically affected by the changes they might as well have called it boa constrictor.

So, is it goodbye to SEO as we know it? Well, truth be told nobody really knows. The only revelation Google is making is that Penguin is intended to weed out SPAM sites — websites that flaunt the rules laid out in Google’s quality guidelines.

The  guidelines are meant to guarantee search users of getting the most relevant and accurate content based on their search terms. This means that any duplicate, spun or spammy content is under attack. Despite the search giant’s noble intentions – to provide quality results — these changes have raised their fair share of controversy. Some quality websites that dominated the search engine have slipped out of the SERPs entirely or well down the slope. And most controversial of all: it appears it’s now possible for your competitors to use negative SEO to bring you down by creating low quality spammy content and links to your site.

Is your website among the casualties? Before you jump off a cliff in frustration, there are a few tactics that’s could just see you survive the Penguin poop.

The Google Penguin Has Come Home to Roost: Recovering From The Penguin Update

A lot has been said about the recent Google Panda update; Penguin. However, short of whining and throwing tantrums in SEO forums and social media, there’s little else that can be done to stop it. In fact, Google updates their search algorithm more often than you actually realize. Your best bet is to simply accept that it is here to stay, adapt and move on. Playing victim won’t help matters. So how do you move on after being knocked off your perch by the big G?

Are You Following The Rules?

If you want to get back into favor with Google, the first step is to understand what exactly they require from a webmaster in terms of SEO. However, going over what they actually want would take forever. Therefore, the best approach would be to go over what constitutes bad SEO.

Spam Under Penguin Attack

Simply put, SPAM is any manipulation of search index pages. A ‘spammy’ website focuses on pleasing search engines as opposed to improving user experience. In a nut shell, you are expected to abide by the rules when it comes to content and links.

• Content

“Content is king”…. The cliché of the century is back, bigger and better. This time they’re serious. Google is hell bent on making sure content takes back its rightful throne on the internet. This simply means that you should say goodbye to the barely readable one dollar articles that have been the cornerstone of your article marketing. As a matter of fact, you need to change tack completely. Instead of writing one articles and submitting spins to hundreds of directories, write good quality articles for your website first and then post additional, quality articles in respected article directories and 2.0 websites. You must absolutely avoid spammy black hat strategies such as keyword stuffing – you’re best off removing ALL your meta keyword tags entirely since no search engine uses them as a positive factor anymore — , using article spinners, incorporating hidden text in your content and using doorway pages.  Make sure your site is not “overoptimized.”

Power Tip: Easy way to approach deoptimization: keep your keyword density under that of the sites that rank above yours.

•  Links

Links are still at the core of an effective SEO strategy but they must be quality. In the past lower quality links simply could not hurt your standing in the SERPS.  However, with the Penguin update the game has changed.  Linking to bad neighborhoods has long been risky; now your site can be damaged by getting links from bad neighborhoods.
You will need to analyze all your current incoming links and remove any that are low quality – or paid. Google is clearly getting very efficient at recognizing at paid links. If your site suffered in the recent update, you may have been hit with “Paid Penguin” filter.

If you clean up your site, it should recover naturally. If it doesn’t, Matt Cutts suggests you may have to start a new site! See more of what Google’s Matt Cutts says about The Penguin: http://searchengineland.com/google-talks-penguin-update-recover-negative-seo-120463.

Checklist for Linking With a Site In The Future

Whether you are linking out or obtaining links, you need to consider:

• Whether the domain is cached on Google;
• The kind of websites linking to the site. Are they related?
• The Google rank of the site. Lower ranking sites add little value to your reputation;
• Google estimation of outbound links;
• Quality of content on the website. Be wary of low quality content.
• The domain and page authority (check through a service such as SEOMoz).

A Summary of the Not-To-Do List

• Do not stuff your site with keywords;
•  Do not use hidden text and links;
•  Avoid hidden redirects and cloaking
• Avoid duplicating content on multiple domains, sub domains and pages.
• Avoid sending automated requests to Google
• Do not create malicious websites e.g. phishing sites
• Do not create door way pages meant for search engines.
• Any affiliate program should have unique and original content.

Additional Resources To Help You Shovel The … Penguin Poop

• Search Engine Journal Post: Negative SEO and How To Protect Yourself
• Link Pruning Link Pruning is the Key to Addressing Penguin Eric Enge interviews Bruce Clay; you must not miss this video if you have been hit by Penguin: http://www.stonetemple.com/link-pruning-is-the-key-to-addressing-penguin
• Must Read: Penguin Recovery Tips by Barry Schwartz and My 2 Cents

You can’t go wrong if you follow the advice of John Britios on quality content and semantic construction. I follow his SEO Workers Facebook Group.

Have you got … um … egg on YOUR face from the Penguin? Share your poop here!

Knock, knock! Ding, dong! It’s time to open the door on a new social bookmarking site and Chime.in.

Oh, no, you say, not another social site! That’s what I said when I learned I simply must start using Google+ – and I still haven’t gotten the hang of it. Or, more accurately, the habit of it. But since Google no longer seems to count Twitter links, and Google+ pages *are* a ranking signal, I really need to get past my resistance. I also resisted Pinterest, and now I am loving it!

I just found Chime.in about a week ago. I had paid someone to bookmark a new Squidoo page I wrote for a client and one of the bookmarks was from this newer site.  Something possessed me to Google the title we were using in bookmarks, and the Chime.in bookmark popped right up. Above the newly indexed page. Hmmm. I bookmarked another page on Chme.in and that bookmark soon showed up in the SERPs.  I’m finding Chimes all over the SERPs.

It would appear that Chime.in creates a nice link for a new page, and gets sends the spiders to a page like a hungry dog to its dinner bowl.

How Would You Like To Get Paid For Your Social Shares?

There’s also a silver lining that will ensure Chime.in catches a lot of attention – it will pay you to share information, links, videos and pictures!  Bill Gross, the CEO of UberMedia,  says users will get paid 50% percent of the revenue Chime.in  earns from selling advertising on their profile pages.

More reading on Chime.in:

• Do We Need Another Social Networking Site?  Yes, if they’ll pay me to play and throw in a good backlink bookmark at the same time. The site, launched in October 2011 already has enough buzz to get PR7 on the home page.
• UberMedia’s Chime.in Interest Network Says It’s Different From Twitter – Forbes article describes it more like Twitter with video and photos – and inline threaded conversations.

This could be fun! I hope you will join me on Chime.in – and say hello. I will definitely add you back. Find me here: http://chime.in/user/mjtaylor. I haven’t started any communities yet – or joined any — but that’s another feature that defines ChimeIn. Let’s explore it together!

What if I told you there are only 5 ranking SEO signals that really matter?

If you do nothing other than pay adequate attention to these 5 SEO ranking factors, you can make Google and the other search engines sit up and take note of your website. In fact, if you get the first one right, you can stop working on your SEO right then and there.

1. Content – Fresh, relevant, quality content. If you can present information in a way that inspires folks to link to you, you’ve done your job as an SEO, plain and simple. No other great effort required. Of course, creating content that goes viral and attracts massive quality links is no mean feat, but it is the holy grail of SEO.

2. Title Tag – Your targeted keyword phrase should come before all else in the title tag – not your company name. Chances are no one else is competing to rank for your brand, so don’t put it first. Limit your title to 68 characters and don’t repeat any keyword.

These Top 5 SEO Factors Are All You Need To Succeed

3. Anchor Text – Of both incoming and internal links. But pure matching anchor text may not be the ticket – it can create an link profile that screams optimization, and if there is anything that Google hates, it’s being manipulated. Instead go for partial match anchor text with close proximity to the rest of the targeted term. For example, if your target phrase for a page is ‘San Antonio Car Mechanic,’ this would be an ideal partial match anchor text: ‘Car Mechanic in San Antonio,’ where the underlined is the anchor text of the link.

4. PageRank – The other reason you want links. We’ve really already covered this one – if you’re creating relevant quality content, you won’t need to worry about links.

The links will come if you’ve created compelling, link worthy content, and because you’ve continued to provide new and informative posts or pages. I know, I know, if you’ve hung around forums or read much of what Google says, you’ll have gotten the impression that PageRank doesn’t matter so much anymore. Don’t let them fool you. If PageRank didn’t matter, Google wouldn’t care if website bought or sold links –and if you’re reading widely, you’ve heard numerous, ominous caveats against link buying and selling.

PageRank – at its simplest – is Google’s estimation of the importance of a given web page based on the importance of other pages linking to it. Yes, PageRank is one of more than 200 signals, but it remains one of the top 5 signals. If you’re still not clear on that, try to imagine how far your site could climb in the SERPs (search engine results pages) without any incoming links. It really is all about the links – and anchor text and PageRank are the two most powerful signals those links carry. Period.

5. Social Buzz – No one social signal is going to push your site up the cliff of the SERPs, but having your site links shared on Twitter, Facebook and now Google+ is becoming increasingly important; especially in the age of personalized search. If the searcher’s Facebook friends or Google+ contacts are sharing about a page relevant to a search query, that is likely to appear prominently in the SERPs. If you’re an influential Tweeter, the links carry extra juice. An active Facebook page gives a social kick that adds up to the social element that is a stronger and stronger factor in search boost. But this comes down to content again. If you have the right content, the social buzz will come.

Get these five ranking signals – or even just the first – right and you can forget about the rest.

But you knew that, didn’t you!

“Twips” For Fledgling Tweeps, Twerps and Silent Birds

Feeling A Little Overwhelmed?

Have you joined Twitter, but find it too overwhelming or just can’t imagine how to make it work for you? Are there so many Tweets that you find yourself looking a bit bug-eyed like the poor Twerp on the right?  Twitter can have a high signal-to-noise ratio, but there are some pretty simple ways to manage that  – it helps if you sort your followers into lists (Twitter provides this feature) and even easier when you use a platform such as Tweetdeck or SocialSprout to keep things organized.

More challenging can be figuring out how to use Twitter – or any form of social media – to promote your business. Or perhaps you just don’t know what to Tweet.

Let’s assume you have gotten started; you’ve signed up and filled out your profile. It helps if you’ve used some descriptive keywords in your profile – it’s important so that like-minded folks can find you by keyword search as well as revealing your interests to those who find you through mentions. You will have uploaded a photo – people respond to faces, so do put yours out there!

Twitter is about who you know – and why you know them!

It may help you to remember that Twitter is about connecting with others who share your interests – they may or may not be potential clients or customers, but they will have, ideally, information that is interesting or helpful to you, or will be interested in the sort of information you have to share.

It can be very helpful to organize your contacts into lists, sorted by interests or how you are connected, or even geography, perhaps. That will allow you to read only one list feed at a time. If you want industry information, you will be can quickly filter out the “noise” that might be overwhelming if you are following large numbers or people with a wide variety of your interests.  If you’re interested in reading about a pet interest – say politics — or a favorite holiday, you can peruse those Tweets only, reducing the clutter and noise that can make Twitter feel overwhelming. You may want to check out this guide to Twitter lists.

How To Promote Your Business Without Annoying Your New Friends

If it’s all about you, you won’t be followed for long. Just as in real life – how long would you stay friends with someone if they only talked about their life? Think about your audience needs and interests when you Tweet and try to play to what they will find interesting most of the time.

By all means, do broadcast the URL to your latest blog post, but make that sort of post in the minority. One self promotional post in 10 would be a good  rule of thumb. The rest of the time you should be looking for ways you can help your followers – providing information they want and retweeting their best Tweets.

First impressions count! You also want to  make sure your last couple of tips of the day have reader appeal rather than self interest … if you can provide both – say a link to a helpful new article on your blog – then by all means make that your last Tweet, but be sure that the ones before that show that it’s worthwhile following you.

What to Share – Inspiring quotes are usually appreciated, as are one line, tasteful jokes, but news is most appreciate in the professional fields. You may already track trends in your local market or the national  news for your industry, but to be the first with breaking newssign up for Google Alerts . If you’ve never used Google Alerts, you’re missing out on a wonderful free service that makes tracking any topic effortless. All you need is a Google account and simply create an Alert for any topic that interests you. You’ll get an email as soon as Google indexes a new web page or news item on the search query you choose.  Here’s Help on Setting Up Your Alerts.  (Bonus Hint: Alerts can also be used to track any mentions of your brand and that of competitors.)

Some great ideas  to help you cater to your audience. What’s in it for your followers?

Don’t Retweet Just To ReTweet.

It's Called ReTweeting Not ReGurgitating

Take the time to read before you share or you may find yourself with, um, egg on your face. You might even inadvertently promote a brand or concept you don’t really support – like that of your arch competitor!  Read before Retweeting to make sure that you not only support what you are sharing, but that it’s not old stale news, or a low content site.  You will find that some people have simply snagged someone else’s idea and that you have to click through to another site to find the real article. Be sure the site you Tweet is of the quality you admire and that your followers are likely to enjoy what you are sharing.

Gratitude is your best friend! Say thank you to new followers – don’t do it by sending them a private message with a promotion in it. That makes me inclined to unfollow someone PDQ. If your first move is to promote to me, I am a little put off. Get to know me first, please.

I think it’s best to say thanks publicly for following or for mentions and Retweets – the more a Twitter handle is mentioned the more authority it is deemed to have, and that boosts the SEO value of links shared on Twitter. So you are doing your Tweeps a favor by putting their handle out there. I like to group as many as I can together.  If it gets forwarded it creates more exposure for more people.

Twitter is, In Part, a Numbers Game!

Do strive to gain as many followers as you can – while it is more about quality and influence of follwoers than it is about sheer numbers, the numbers  help in a couple of ways. The more people who know you the more likely your presence or links gets seen by new folks. Additionally, when someone new surveys your profile, you can bet they will be more likely to follow you if lots of others are doing the same. There is a crowd mentality – and people think if all of those folks are following her, she must have something to say worth hearing.  Your most recent Tweets may speak volumes more to that point, but the numbers are usually noted.

Above All, Be Yourself and Have Fun!

It’s social, it’s meant to be fun! Yes, it’s also about business and your professional relationships – but it’s not an office environment. Think of it more like a holiday party for your clients – you want to loosen up and make sure they are entertained.  Don’t be afraid to be a little witty, or quirky if that’s who you are.

More basics: What is Twitter and How Does It Work?

Terrific article on how often to Tweet your own articles and website content and where to find content to establish yourself as an authority in your own field: The 10:4:1 Rule. Shorthand for the rule: 10 Links to third-party articles; 4 Links to company blog posts’ 1 Link to a landing page.

Have you got any Twips for new Tweeps?

SEO Predictions For 2011 Reviewed

Before I share my prediction for SEO trends in 2012, it seems reasonable to review my Top 5 SEO Predictions for 2011 – a thread I wrote for v7N – and see if I made the mark for the past year.

Mobile Search SEO will become as important as standard web site search optimization. If the prediction of CNN/Fortune’s Seth Weintraub is correct — that ½ billion smartphones will be sold this coming year –  smartphones will surpass computers as a way to access the Internet in 2011.

Smartphones have apparently not yet surpassed PCs as the preferred way to access the Internet, but the trend continues in that direction and the use of mobile for social networking strengthens that momentum. Mobile access is predicted to outpace desktop access by 2014: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/2011-mobile-statistics-stats-facts-marketing-infographic/.

2. Social Networking to Explode. Since Google and Bing confirmed that Twitter and Facebook have an impact on rankings, social media activity is set to increase exponentially.

Not only did the use of social media grow, but social networking held the International stage  as a central player in the Arab Spring.  Google also made a creditable entry (at last) into the social market with Google+. The introduction of Business Pages on Google+ added SEO value to the mix.

3. Google Places and Reviews will continue to grow in importance. Google Places will continue to find their way into SERPs and savvy webmasters and SEOs will go beyond optimizing their Google Places for client sites. ..  the search-smartest of webmasters will have their site marked up with rdfa “rich snippets” to make sure Google displays reviews in the SERPs where applicable.

In July, 2011, the landscape of Google Places changed significantly when the search giant stopped publishing 3^rd party reviews. At the same time, reviews took a more prominent position – with a second button inviting visitors to create a Review.

4. Duplicate Content - this year’s Mayday algorithm update and the roll out of Caffeine – an update to Google’s infrastructure to make it more flexible – set the stage for more frequent updates to the algorithm. Google will continue to take aim on less valuable content. Expect more intense duplicate content filtering, and expect “self service” links to decrease in value. Focus on unique content of true value.

5. Content & Link Bait to Continue to Reign. Google will continue to get smarter and discern between legitimate link popularity and the sort that is faked by link wheels, 3 way linking and article spinning, to name a few. The ability to create and publish content (King) that attracts links (Queen) will grow in importance. Unsolicited links to fresh, unique content will continue to be the Royal Flush.

The Panda updates certainly took aim at what Google called “content farms” and late in the year Freshness got a boost in the algorithm. Content Rules.

My score: four out five isn’t too bad.

SEO Trends for 2012

So what’s on the SEO Plate as 2012 unfolds?

1. Google+ - which reached a top ten market share position in social networks in November just months after its introduction – will continue to play an increasing role in Social SEO.  The search giant’s social platform seems to have combined the best features of Twitter and Facebook and in some cases gone one better.Some Google+ innovations, such as privacy controls at the time of posting, were quickly adopted by Facebook. True social networking remains the province of Facebook, but professionals – especially in the technology fields and many of the arts, such as photography will continue to find Google+ a more robust alternative to Twitter.

   The introduction of Google+ “brand”  pages coincided with the new platform’s entrance into the top ten of social sites; some SEOs believe that Google+ will continue to grow – if only slightly – as long as site owners find  SEO and traffic value from  those pages. Vanity URLs (expec ted this year) should support the trend.  Brand pages have also found their way onto Google Results – a “controversial occupation” of search geography.

   Google+ shares will continue to be part of Google’s track toward personalized search. If you are logged in, you are more and more likely to see links and comments from your network contacts.

2. Away From Keywords – toward traffic and conversion. When Google Analytics dropped the keyword referral data from view; it underscored an increasing trend away from tracking “ranking” for query strings. Clients still want it, but personalized search makes it an increasing less important metric. Traffic and conversion becomes more important.
3. Quality Content Continues to Reign  -  The Freshness Factor and Panda’s assault on poor content sites means webmasters must continue to update their sites to reflect the latest trends and news in their industry.
4. Bing will continue to grow in importance. Google lost 5% of its market share to MSN’s revamped search engine this year – and MSN’s ties with Yahoo and Facebook will continue to make the Bing presence larger in desktop search. Google’s increasing mobile presence (more than half of smartphones sold in 2011 were Androids) may mitigate some of that growth, though.
5. Move over Rich Snippets: Rich Snippets will share the Semantic Web Stage with Schema, a Microdata markup for web pages that is recognized by Google, Bing and Yahoo.  Google continues to support Rich Snippets, but the trend is toward the more standardized Schema.
   • SeoMoz post on Schema with examples and discussion of mixing the languages and vocabulary of the diverse types of markup available:
   • A full list of the document types: http://schema.org/docs/full.html
   • Google Help for Schema: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1211158
   • Resources for Rich Snippets: http://www.cyber-key.com/cutting-edge-seo-rich-snippets.html.
6. Anchor text decreases in value?  More than one SEO observed recently  that the anchor text of new links  seemed to immediately push down the rankings for the same query strings. Certainly it makes sense that Google, which has trouble identifying paid links and similar link spam, would see devaluing the anchor text as an easy way to undermine attempts to directly manipulate SERPs.  And it goes hand in hand with the this past year’s devaluation of keyword rich domain names.
7. Speech Recognition.  This 7^th prediction is not mine, but one I found here:
   

   Speech recognition – Siri, the speech recognition ”assistant” on the latest iPhone, makes people talk with their phones and it’s extremely popular already. In 2012 we will see Apple’s competitors come up with similar tools so that we don’t need to talk to people or type in search queries anymore. Is this the end of SEO as some journalists assume (just like some suggest after every other major change in the search industry)?

   No, it just means different kinds of queries, maybe more colloquial or clumsy ones. Maybe more dialogue with your search engine, for example ”I want something to eat”. I can’t imagine people just saying one, two or three word queries in public without looking silly. So they will talk as they do with other people.

How do you see the trends in SEO for 2012? Do you agree or disagree with any of mine? Have any to offer of your own?

]]> http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/seo-trends-2012/feed/ 9 http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/2012-%e2%80%93-seize-the-year/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2012-%25e2%2580%2593-seize-the-year http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/2012-%e2%80%93-seize-the-year/#comments Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:32:32 +0000 mjtaylor http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/?p=357

My mother always told me to live each day as though it was my last – and if I buy into Apocalypse 2012, (and even if I don’t) it makes sense to live the coming year as though it were my last. Either way, it makes sense to wave the Carpe Annum banner, doesn’t it?

The easiest way I’ve found to make the most of a day – or any stretch of time – is to plan ahead. So, I’m taking the first week of the year to list what I want to accomplish, workwise, in the coming months and outline a schedule to accomplish it.

For a start:

1.  Complete my Key West site design and install WordPress with Thesis as the platform: (AbsolutelyKeyWest.com);
2. Plan, photograph and write the posts to fill out and complete the neighborhoods section of a real estate client site. I have one section halfway done for the Casa Marina area of Key West;
3. Create a workable social SEO schedule for client Twitter campaigns;
4. Add Google+ pages for clients — I have truly been resisting this; I just feel Twitter and Facebook offer enough social networking opportunities.

It’s the schedule that will be the biggest challenge for me. I’ve always enjoyed the flexibility of the self-employed – working when I am inclined or when the pressure of a deadline presents. For 2012, though, I would like to create a more disciplined work routine.

I don’t want to set a goal I can’t keep – if I wanted to do that, I would be considering New Year’s Resolutions. Instead, I will be working toward goals that make me feel good. I will set a goal of minimum weekly billable hours, and set a daily schedule that puts me at the keyboard for more than enough hours to accomplish that.
I will have my long range plan – and I will have a daily list; I will use a technique I learned years ago from Tom Hopkins:

“Every evening, write down the six most important things that you must do the next day. Then while you sleep your subconscious will work on the best ways for you to accomplish them. Your next day will go much more smoothly.” ~ Tom Hopkins

So, I have a plan. At the end of the year – assuming we are all here New Year’s Eve 2012 – I will have accomplished more in 2012 than in 2011. I’ll let you know how it goes.



As to the prediction of the end times, I find the Mayan calendar theory a much more amusing and appealing theory than Biblical Revelations – the Aztec calendars, which were used to predict astral events, such as sunrises, sunsets, etc. were calculated up to Dec. 12, 2012. Personally. I don’t really think there’s any reason to believe the “World As We Know It” will disappear this year, but our failure as a race to address Climate Change and religious differences may certainly accelerate those days to the foreseeable future. Or so it seems to me.

What’s your plan for 2012? How will you Carpe Annum?

]]> http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/2012-%e2%80%93-seize-the-year/feed/ 0 http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/link-building-christmas-gifts-gratitude/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=link-building-christmas-gifts-gratitude http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/link-building-christmas-gifts-gratitude/#comments Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:22:15 +0000 mjtaylor http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/?p=310


Web Surfing Santa Says Count Your Blessings

Unless you still believe in Santa Claus and it’s all about “What’s under the tree for ME?” Christmas is about giving. Not just to friends and family, but I hope to the world around us. I was inspired and my spirit raised by the “Secret Santa” movement that started this year. At our local Kmart, more than 15 Secret Santas donated more than $5,000 to pay off the layaways of less fortunate folks.

I was reminded that I am the one who benefits most when I give. It makes me feel good – whether it’s an anonymous gift (the best kind) or a public act. And it’s not just a holiday opportunity; it’s a question I think we should ask ourselves every day. What can I do for someone else today? How can I make a difference in the world? How can I say thank you for all my blessings? And what did I see on my way home from a Christmas Eve party last night? An inspiring sign hung on a teddy bear:

Santa says: Count Your Blessings. If you get to 15 you have everything!

So, I decided to count 15 blessings in my online world and give a link to each of them. Of course, a link from a post on this post might be nice, but a long established page with toolbar PR5 might be an even nicer way to say thanks so I have added Internet folks on a page dedicated to internet marketing.

I hope you will look around your online world today and figure out a way to give something back – whether it’s a link, a ReTweet or sharing some information. I do believe what goes around comes around. And I know that linking out is useful for SEO as well as Karma. You’re saying to Google and other search engines: this is my neighborhood and I am sticking/linking to it.

Merry Christmas: no matter what your faith, I wish for you an Attitude of Gratitude and Giving.

Peace.

]]> http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/link-building-christmas-gifts-gratitude/feed/ 1 http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/keyword-research-first-seo-step/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=keyword-research-first-seo-step http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/keyword-research-first-seo-step/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:45:54 +0000 mjtaylor http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/?p=318

SEO Should Be Your First Step in Site Design

A local business owner called yesterday afternoon and asked if I could help with his site’s SEO. Unfortunately, I work for his competition so I said no, but I had a look at his site anyway.  I’ve seen it before; he’s been in the market for a long time, and I was surprised to see he had no toolbar PageRank and was nowhere to be found in the top 100 of Google for his most relevant terms.

What did you do to piss off Google, I asked? (Well, not exactly like that.) Oh, he said, the site’s been moved to WordPress, and the page names are all new. A 301 redirect was not a term he’d heard before.  Not that he should have … I felt for him, but he is a client competitor, so I had to wish him the best and sign off.

He was also not the first person I ran across yesterday who waited until after they need an SEO to ask for help. Most days include contact with at least one person that makes me want to rant about hiring an SEO first.

Over the years, it’s been my task to plan and oversee the redesign of the sites that were referred to me precisely because they were designed without the search engines in mind.  Or by a webmaster that thinks he knows SEO, but doesn’t. . Trust me; I can’t keep up with both the latest technology for web design and SEO. I work with designers who will implement a design to my SEO specs.

The greatest success will come when is designed with both the visitors and the search engines in mind. It’s not as though you can’t optimize after the fact, but it sure is a lot easier – and less expensive – if you start with a website designed for SEO.

First Things First: Keyword Research

Any SEO web designer worth their salt will start with helping you to define your target audience and researching the keywords that market will use. They will ask: what terms do you think describe your product or service? They should suggest you take the time to ask your current customers what words they would use to search for a company like yours. And they will look at the competition and see what keywords they are using. Once compiled, that “seed list” will provide the basis for the next step in the keyword research for your site: determining whether web site searchers are using those terms, how often the terms are searched and how much competition there is for those terms from other websites.

What is revealed by the research will guide the content of your site, its navigation, and structure, graphics – including your logo if you don’t have one – and your link building campaign. Don’t let your design team skip this step – designing without it is putting the proverbial cart before your horse.

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]]> http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/keyword-research-first-seo-step/feed/ 0 http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/footer-links-work/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=footer-links-work http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/footer-links-work/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:54:18 +0000 mjtaylor http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/?p=301

Webspam Debate Highlights Effectiveness of Footer Links

A few days ago, Joost de Valk of Yoast published a post revealing a questionable tactic of Godaddy. Yoast had grown weary of losing search terms to the host and took a fine tooth comb to its link profile. What Yoast found: Godaddy was winning those terms by sneaking text links into the footer of their Website Tonight clients. The sneaky part was not revealing that the embedded link would have a text element. Previews only show the graphic.
Footer Links Work? Yoast’s link analysis indicates they do.

Google has been telling us for quite a while now that footer links etc. are not that important. Well guess what, that’s not true if you have enough of them. Using SearchMetrics I ran a report for the top keywords they rank in the top 3 for. Each and every keyword in there that is not their brand name, from website hosting to webhosting to website builder, to domain name registration and more: all of those landing pages have exact match anchor text links pointing to them. All coming from these types of domains, thousands if not tens of thousands of clients who are paying for a service, are unknowingly also helping GoDaddy’s business by helping it rank.

I always thought that was a bit of Google propaganda. I’ve used footer links for years and found them very effective – they are not just an opportunity to add anchor text; they are an important navigation tool for users. If I have captured a visitor’s imagination so fully that they read to the end of the page, I sure want to present a path to other parts of my site.
Some SEOs feel it’s wrong to place links in the footer of client sites. I started developing sites in 1998 when it was common practice. I don’t always place my link on client footers, but I reserve the right to do so when I enter a new contract.

Yoast’s post is an example of “outing” webspam; a topic under debate between SEOBook’s Aaron Wall and SEOMoz Rand Fishkin posted as a discussion on Saturday.

Would you keep quiet if you saw webspam? Would you report webspam on a competitor’s site?

]]> http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/footer-links-work/feed/ 5 http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/will-one-post-change-the-position-of-a-page-in-the-serps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=will-one-post-change-the-position-of-a-page-in-the-serps http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/will-one-post-change-the-position-of-a-page-in-the-serps/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:36:13 +0000 mjtaylor http://www.cyber-key.com/SocialSEO/?p=298

A few years ago, I (in collaboration with the client’s webmaster) created a new section of content for a Key West Realtor’s site. It was a tourist guide to area events, attractions, shopping, restaurants and bars. We added 6 or 7 new pages of content – all linking to area websites.

The webmaster also created a menu page for the site: http://www.rudymolinet.com/key-west/ but as an experiment we decided not to create any internal links to it and see how Google treated it.

Frankly, I forgot about it and I did create a few links to it from the Morestar Article Directory.



Anchor Text of the Links From Morestar

And forgot about it again. But today when I was searching key west visitor guide I was surprised to find it in G’s SERPs at #12. It’s not a highly searched, competitive term (380 a month). It doesn’t rank nearly as well for terms related to the anchor text of the links (#31 for guide to key west, for example), but those terms are searched twice as often and are more competitive locally. The page also reflects no toolbar Pagerank.

So, I thought I would create this post, using the URL only see whether one more link will affect its position.

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