REPOST: We Love Google, We Love Google Not: 6 SEO-Inspired Valentine's Day Quotes

Search Engine Watch tweaked a few words from some of the greatest quotes about love to make this amusing string of quotes about search engine optimization. Read along and have a hearty laugh or two:

Image Source: searchenginewatch.com

It's Valentine's week. Love the Hallmark Holiday or hate it, at the very least it's one of the top five times of year to stock up on chocolate candy.

This is also a good time of year to search for quotes about love and romance, whether you want to write a valentine or you're looking to rewrite a few classics to apply to our perpetually dysfunctional relationship with Google. Clearly, I'm going for the latter.

It's funny how when you change a few words in some quotations about love, you get a whole new meaning as it applies to SEO.

We're all learning the hard way what it means to be in a fight with Google.

A guy who called a woman by his ex's name has it easy compared to a site that bought links and spun article content. Ask anybody going in for a fifth reconsideration request whether they'd be willing to shell out for a dozen roses and a new Pandora charm.

Using misguided link building practices does actually mean having to say "I'm sorry," often several times over. It also comes with acts of penitence that are the relationship equivalent of anywhere from 6 months to years of sleeping on the couch. Likely, it's a very uncomfortable couch. But that's the price of getting back into Google's good graces. Sometimes even once you get back in the master bedroom, you still have a long time of playing nice ahead to get things back to normal.

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Image Source: searchenginewatch.com

The reasons Google may have a problem with a link may be more than you can eyeball at a glance.

There are other patterns related to on- and off-site factors that can be mitigating. Anything from an IP address, a C-class, a map of cross linking, or a repeating series of words, can send negative signals to Google about a whole series of links, sending up a red flag. There may also be symptoms related to the ratios and proportions that comprise a site's back links that could be tripping a filter.

Sometimes what's setting off alarms is beyond what you can see looking only at a page or a link alone. It's the entire context of the link, including influences you may not be able to see that easily that is affecting how it is read.

Consider everything when you're reviewing your links and prepare to make some hard choices. Even something that looks harmless may have to go.

'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

Image Source: searchenginewatch.com

Even if getting back to the best rankings you've ever had may not be in the future, that doesn't mean it's game over. Yes, it's hard to think about the way things were without tearing up, but stop listening to Adele, and snap out of it.

More than two or three keywords matter now. There are a lot more opportunities out there. They may not be as rich or sexy as the one that got away but they are smart, reliable and obtainable.

No one will tell you to settle for a spouse, but when it comes to keywords and traffic sources, get ready to lower your standards and broaden the sea you're fishing in.

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.' -Erich Fromm

Dependency isn't typically a pillar of any solid relationship. But over dependency on organic traffic from a limited source can lead to a dangerous depression if it goes away. It's the kind of downward spiral that involves enough raw cookie dough to cause ecoli.

Don't get stuck. Focus on capturing traffic from a wider spectrum of keywords and content.

Spend more time thinking about referrals from links than the keywords on them. Spend time engaging people you do care about as followers on Facebook instead of buying followers that don't matter.

Look at branded traffic from people that are searching specifically for you; think about how to draw in visitors from more obscure searches into your conversion funnel. It may not be the glory days of the past, but it's a lot healthier and it's got a shot to last.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. - Oscar Wilde

Loving what you're doing, regardless of how anyone else feels about it, is a huge part of happiness. So know what you have to offer and whether it deserves to be the best.

If what you provide is really worth being presented as the top choice to users, fight for it. Find your voice, tell your story.

You can lead and innovate in big and small ways. Real connections, positive experiences, and genuine insights don't have to be loud and flashy.

New ideas, events, and "big things" can come from anywhere. If your ultimate goal is to be great instead of just achieving great rankings, the hard work involved can pay off in ways you'll never have to apologize for.

Any involvement with Google is going to be a tempestuous affair; it's rocky, imbalanced, the communication is terrible and you'll always feel they don't love you as much as you love them. But when it's good, it's so worth it.

In my search, I found this quote that, even though it came from a blonde bombshell from the past, it seems appropriate for one of the greatest heartbreakers of our generation:

With its cutting-edge strategies in digital marketing, SEOP helps businesses harness their potential for growth. Visit this website to learn about the infinite possibilities for brand growth.

REPOST: The Top 7 SEO Trends That Will Dominate 2015

The year is almost over, and industry observers are ready to relay their forecasts for 2015. So what can the SEO market look forward to in 2015? Let Forbes.com contributor Jayson DeMers walk you through the trends that will likely rule the SEO industry next year.  

Image Source: parupedia.com

The SEO industry in 2014 is virtually unrecognizable from that of 2011 and earlier, and this coming year we’ll see even more changes in best practices for the industry and how we execute SEO campaigns.

Earlier this year I wrote about The Top 7 SEO Trends Dominating 2014, but as we quickly approach 2015, I wanted to take a look at what’s changed in recent months and what we can expect over the next year.

Following are my top 7 SEO predictions for 2015. Please be sure to add yours in the comments below!

1. SEO will become focused on technical elements while content marketing will drive search rankings

In the not-so-distant past, the terms content marketing and SEO were often used interchangeably. This isn’t surprising given the enormous overlap between the two. However, throughout 2015, SEO will increasingly be seen as encompassing the technical components of online marketing, whereas content marketing will be the key driver of search engine rankings.

SEO will remain an invaluable subset of content marketing, dealing with keyword research, meta tags, indexing issues and penalty recovery, while content marketing will become the primary influencer of search visibility. Businesses that continue to focus on SEO without having a strong content plan in place will fail, and will need to shift their focus to the creation and distribution of high-quality content in order to achieve significant search engine visibility.

2. Sites that aren’t optimized for user intent and mobile SEO will fail

In 2014, it has become increasingly obvious that Google is placing a great deal of importance on mobile usability. We’ve seen Google testing mobile-friendly icons next to search results, as well as adding a mobile usability section in Google Webmaster accounts so users can see how their site performs on mobile devices. We also know that for over a year now, Google has been penalizing sites that generate errors for mobile users. For more on this, see my article, Is Mobile Usability Now a Search Ranking Factor?

Technical aspects aside, we’ve also seen a shift toward long-tail keyword searches, and optimizing for searches based on user intent and mobile habits. For instance, we know that mobile users consume content differently that desktop users: they’re more likely to use voice search, access content at different times or in different locations than desktop users, and are looking for information to accomplish specific tasks while ‘on the go.’

Businesses that fail to tailor their website and content to these users will see their conversions plummet, and will experience a significant drop in search engine rankings. For a complete checklist for optimizing your content for mobile, see my post 10 Steps to Creating a Mobile-Optimized Content Strategy.

3. Brand mentions and citations will become as powerful as links

In a recently discovered patent submission, we see that Google is differentiating between “express links” and “implied links”. Express links, what we traditionally and currently think of as links, are URLs that lead back to a webpage (for instance, http://www.google.com). Implied links, however, can include referencing or mentioning a brand or website without actually linking to the site.

Due to the widespread misuse and abuse of link building (think link building schemes and negative SEO), Google appears to placing more emphasis on brand mentions and citations, which are less likely and less easy to be manipulated for the purpose of achieving higher search rankings. Over the course of 2015, we’ll see more businesses measuring and tracking brand mentions and nofollowed links, and we’ll discover that these are becoming just as important as “dofollow” links for search rankings.

For a detailed analysis of this, see my article, Implied Links, Brand Mentions and the Future of SEO Link Building.

4. Following the failed Google+ Authorship experiment, Google will place more value on social signals from Twitter and Facebook

Over the past couple years, SEO and social media experts have been pushing businesses to have a strong presence on Google+; they’ve promoted Google Authorship in particular, as it was believed to be important for achieving not only high search rankings, but also improving the click-through rate of content in search engine results pages. In August, however, Google announced that they had ended their Authorship program due to low adoption rates and the fact that, as John Mueller put it, it wasn’t “as useful to our users as we’d hoped.”

Given the failure of the Authorship experiment, I believe businesses will be even less likely to build their presence on Google+, given the apparent lack of SEO benefits that can be derived from it. Instead, I believe Google will begin putting more emphasis on social signals from Facebook and Twitter, despite their hesitancy to do so in the past.

Image Source: uniqueitcenter.com

For years, there’s been plenty of speculation about whether Google already uses social signals in its ranking algorithm, and a healthy debate has arisen. Correlation studies show strong correlations between social signals and rankings, yet Google has continually denied that social signals are part of its ranking algorithm.

Despite these claims, many believe that social signals are already part of the ranking algorithm, and strong evidence has been presented to support this belief. Whether or not social signals really are currently part of the ranking algorithm, in 2015 I believe we’ll see all doubt removed – social signals will become a significant factor in the ranking algorithm.

5. Search rankings will increasingly become more about building relationships and less about technical strategies

With the vast amount of content produced and published every day, businesses are realizing that focusing on merely creating content and optimizing its technical components for SEO just aren’t enough to achieve their goals. Marketers are already realizing that businesses that are able to humanize their brand are the ones who are standing out; and I believe this will only increase in importance in 2015.

High search rankings can no longer be achieved by isolated webmasters who focus on technical compliance; rather, there must be a shift toward relational strategies such as blogger outreach campaigns, building relationships with brand advocates, reaching out to influencers and engaging on social media.

6. Negative SEO will be a bigger threat than ever

Earlier this year, I wrote about the impact of negative SEO on search engine rankings. In short, negative SEO is when dubious people build thousands of spammy links pointed at a competitors’ website with the intent of causing their search rankings to plummet. This has been a serious problem for webmasters over the past couple years, and in 2015 negative SEO will become an even bigger threat to business owners.


In a recent Google Webmaster Office Hours, Google’s John Mueller stated that it can take up to 9 months for disavow files to be completely “taken into account.” Since disavowing links is the only method Google has given webmasters for distancing themselves from spammy links pointing to their website, this means that a negative SEO attack could have catastrophic consequences for businesses, erasing their search visibility for large chunks of a year.

While small sites will likely never have to deal with it, larger sites in competitive niches are prime targets for Negative SEO. Negative SEO will also need to be taken more seriously by Google, as these types of attacks undermine the very foundation of search quality. Rather than putting the onus on webmasters to disavow spammy links, Google will need to find ways to recognize manipulative links built to compromise websites, and penalize the perpetrators. And all this without the involvement of webmasters, in order to maintain the integrity of search results.

7. SEO will no longer be an isolated department, but become fully integrated with other aspects of marketing

Traditionally, many businesses have or have had dedicated SEO departments or hired SEO companies or consultants. However, as SEO, social media and content marketing all converge to achieve the same goals, the three will need to be fully integrated in order to succeed.

Dedicated SEO consultants and departments will begin to phase out as SEO comes to be seen not as a siloed discipline, but rather a foundational component that integrates with and is affected by all aspects of the marketing mix – both online and offline. We’ve already seen the shift from ‘SEO consultant’ to ‘content marketing strategist’, and this trend is only going to become amplified in 2015.

Image Source: shutterstock.com

Don’t misunderstand me: SEO is not dead or dying. It’s just changing; content marketing and social media specialists will need specialized SEO knowledge and skills in order to be successful. However, these SEO strategies will be need to be fully integrated with the creation and promotion of content, rather than kept as a separate, isolated task.

The solutions and strategies offered by SEOP will help your company survive and grow amid the changes that the SEO industry will face in 2015. Click here to partner with the best and to harness the power to grow your business in 2015.

REPOST: Is Backlinking from Blog Comments a Good or Bad SEO Tactic?

Marketers usually look to backlinking as one of the best tools to achieve higher rankings in search results pages. But the question lies on how it affects the credibility of the website and builds SEO credit. Read the article below to learn about proper backlinking strategies to help your website gain credibility and get ranked in organic search results. 

 

Image Source: business2community.com

In the ongoing fight to get your website ranked highly by Google, many folks look to backlinking as one of the best options to achieve this result. But, is it a good idea or not to employ this sort of tactic?

Before we start anything, I will state categorically, “Do not buy Links!”

The reasons for this will be self-evident as you read on.

What is a Backlink?

A backlink is quite simply a link from a website back to your website. For example, your company is listed on your local Chamber of Commerce website and they place a link on their site back to your website. That’s a backlink!

Here’s another example of a backlink from the Yellow Pages.

So, why is it important to get backlinks? A simplistic overview, without going into too much detail and boring the life out of you, is that quality backlinks from high ranking domains give SEO juice (credibility) to your website. And subsequently, Google looks to rank your website higher in the organic search results.

It’s similar to a business referral. If you get a referral from someone you know and trust, then you know that the referral is worth a lot to you. Get one from someone you don’t know, and the trust factor diminishes substantially.

But what about placing backlinks in the blog comments section of a website?

Why Is It A Bad Idea?

As SEO tactics go, placing backlinks in blog comments is not necessarily a good or bad thing. However, if you are using the tactic solely as a way to gain more SEO credit, then you are wasting your time and will ultimately hurt your website’s credibility. Some of first things to keep in mind when making comments on a blog are: “Is the website and discussion related to my own business?”, “What value are you bringing to the discussion?” and “Are you furthering the discussion by offering alternative viewpoints or information. In essence, “Are you bringing VALUE?”

In this example, the original discussion was about using cloth diapers vs disposal diapers on a pregnancy website. You can tell from the comment that they are not adding any value at all. Because this particular website has a high domain ranking, they simply placed so text and a link to their own website home page to try and garner some seo juice. While the tactic may work in the short term, Google’s algorithms will catch up with you eventually and ding your website in a way that you may never recover from.

Just placing a link in a blog comment does nothing and you should get nothing out of it if that’s all you bring to the table. Writing comments like, “Wow, great article you really nailed this one, link,” also serves no purpose for the reader. If you sell Pink Dresses and place links on websites that deal in Nuclear Fusion or Casino Gambling, why should you get credit for this when it has nothing to do with Pink Dresses?

To illustrate how these tactics can affect you, a 2011 article by the New York Times concerning J.C. Penny shows just what can happen if you use “black-hat” tactics to try and subvert the ranking process.

J.C. Penny hired an SEO firm to help them try to get their website pages to rank higher in Google search results. After a period of time, the tactics seemed to be working. Many of their website pages started to rank very high in the search engine results pages (SERPs). In fact, they started beating out their own supplier’s website pages in the SERPs. But what J.C. Penny did not know was that the SEO Company was placing hundreds of links all over the internet to influence the rankings.

When information came to light about how J.C. Penny (their SEO Company) achieved these results and the information was reported to Google, their rankings plummeted down faster than someone wearing a pair of cement shoes in a body of water. This is what Google did:

“On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against J.C. Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company.

At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite Carry On Luggage.”

Two hours later, it was at No. 71.

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was No. 1 in searches for “Living Room Furniture.”

By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.

In other words, one moment J. C. Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country. The next it was essentially buried.”

You can see that just placing links on websites with no relevance to your product can cause you massive problems. J.C. Penny fired their SEO Company and worked hard to correct the problem.

When is it a Good Idea?

As we mentioned earlier, placing comments on blog articles is good when you have something of value to offer. The reader will be further engaged, informed or educated about the topic. The process should be looked at as one of building social influence, rather than one of link building. Developing a relationship with particular websites and making regular contributions via comments in blog articles will have a better effect on your social influence than getting a backlink. You must also keep in mind that many influential sites that allow blog comments have “rel-nofollow” attributes assigned to them. So, you would get no SEO credit for the backlink anyway.

If you do leave a link, make sure it has good anchor text. Don’t leave link looking like, http://businessname.com/pinkdresses, put “Pink Dresses.”

So What Should You Do?

Backlinking is still an important part of gaining website online credibility and getting yourself ranked in Google’s organic search results. But it is hard work. Here are a few things you can start to do:

Develop Relationships. If you find a site that has influence in your industry, start to develop a relationship with them. Ultimately, if you bring value to them, they may give you value back by giving you a backlink.

Guest Post. Some people say this method is dead, but I disagree. Getting original content onto influential websites not only provides them with additional value to offer their audience, but gives you a powerful backlink. Don’t forget to ask them if they provide a backlink before you submit anything to them.

Directory Listings. This is still a good method of getting a free backlink. It is especially helpful if the directory listing site has a high domain rank.

It’s not easy to build quality backlinks. There are companies that charge thousands of dollars to maybe get just 4-6 top quality backlinks for you. It takes time, patience and the desire to do things the right way!

Do it the wrong way and like most things in life, you’ll pay for it!


SEOP is a highly rated digital marketing and SEO firm with over 12 years of experience offering powerful and high-performance online marketing strategies that put your name on top of organic search results and above your competition. Click here to learn more about the company’s game-changing web services born out of its years of experience as a digital marketing leader.

REPOST: 4 Tips to Prepare for Google’s Ever-Changing SEO Strategy

Companies who rely heavily on search engine optimization need to be constantly on guard for any changes in Google’s algorithms. This article discusses four ways on how to keep track and keep up with these changes.

In 2013, we not only saw updates to two of the most significant Google algorithms — Panda and Penguin — but also the release of Hummingbird, all of which affect SEO efforts to a great extent. The following tips will help you to stay up to date with the latest algorithms and plan your strategy for potential SEO changes in the future.

1. Avoid Shortcuts 
Pretty much all of the advice written in the past few years for improving SEO in the wake of Google’s Panda (2011), Penguin (2012) and Hummingbird (2013) algorithm updates still applies, but is perhaps even more relevant in 2014. Since the introduction of Panda and Penguin especially, businesses who have tried to cheat their way to the top have been penalized with a lower position on search engine rankings and, with the further improvements to these two algorithms, websites use spammy content can expect an even more severe penalty.
2. Improve Your Content Marketing
Content marketing has moved from being merely useful to of central importance to SEO strategies this year. Google’s algorithm changes continue to shift the focus from keywords to subjects - from trying to understand the keywords that might reflect the subject of a search query to trying to gain a semantic understanding of the query subject itself. In a way this simplifies things, as it frees up more time to create content your audience finds relevant and useful.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/seo/4-tips-prepare-googles-ever-changing-seo-strategy-0863219#qTrFpQ46Wl5zK2Gz.99

Image Source: business2community.com

In 2013, we not only saw updates to two of the most significant Google algorithms — Panda and Penguin — but also the release of Hummingbird, all of which affect SEO efforts to a great extent. The following tips will help you to stay up to date with the latest algorithms and plan your strategy for potential SEO changes in the future.

1. Avoid Shortcuts 

Pretty much all of the advice written in the past few years for improving SEO in the wake of Google’s Panda (2011), Penguin (2012) and Hummingbird (2013) algorithm updates still applies, but is perhaps even more relevant in 2014. Since the introduction of Panda and Penguin especially, businesses who have tried to cheat their way to the top have been penalized with a lower position on search engine rankings and, with the further improvements to these two algorithms, websites use spammy content can expect an even more severe penalty.

2. Improve Your Content Marketing

Content marketing has moved from being merely useful to of central importance to SEO strategies this year. Google’s algorithm changes continue to shift the focus from keywords to subjects - from trying to understand the keywords that might reflect the subject of a search query to trying to gain a semantic understanding of the query subject itself. In a way this simplifies things, as it frees up more time to create content your audience finds relevant and useful.

In general, Google and other search engines are now favoring websites that can show a robust content marketing effort, determined by factors which include publishing regular and helpful content targeted at a specific audience, frequent sharing and engagement on a range of social networks, and ranking authority, which is associated with the number of quality back links.

Showing your commitment to social media is particularly important, which you can achieve by creating a strong profile, ensuring your content is sharable, and taking an active role on social networks that are important to your industry and customers.

3. Keep an Eye Out for Algorithm Changes

Hummingbird is just the first of what could be several algorithm changes as the search giant attempts to respond to the rapid shift toward mobile devices. This  means that mobile performance will have an even greater impact on SEO rankings.

In order to be successful, you need to pay attention to everything from how you design and structure your content to what content you release. If you are not doing so already, you need to develop a mobile-optimized website and/or take a mobile-first approach to website redesign.

4. Give Up Guest Blogging

In recent years, guest blogging has become increasingly popular for its usefulness in gaining inbound links and targeted traffic. However, in Google’s new content-focused search paradigm, it is falling out of favor, and quickly. The main culprit? Too many spammy guest bloggers. Don’t believe me? Feel free to read it from the horse’s mouth, who in this case is Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam Team (and unofficial oracle of Google SEO best practices):

So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy.

Guest blogging, no bueno…

Boasting over two-thirds (67.5%, to be exact) of all internet search traffic, Google continues to reign supreme in the world of search. Follow these four tips, and you should be able to stay on the tech giant’s good side.

In 2013, we not only saw updates to two of the most significant Google algorithms — Panda and Penguin — but also the release of Hummingbird, all of which affect SEO efforts to a great extent. The following tips will help you to stay up to date with the latest algorithms and plan your strategy for potential SEO changes in the future.

1. Avoid Shortcuts 
Pretty much all of the advice written in the past few years for improving SEO in the wake of Google’s Panda (2011), Penguin (2012) and Hummingbird (2013) algorithm updates still applies, but is perhaps even more relevant in 2014. Since the introduction of Panda and Penguin especially, businesses who have tried to cheat their way to the top have been penalized with a lower position on search engine rankings and, with the further improvements to these two algorithms, websites use spammy content can expect an even more severe penalty.
2. Improve Your Content Marketing
Content marketing has moved from being merely useful to of central importance to SEO strategies this year. Google’s algorithm changes continue to shift the focus from keywords to subjects - from trying to understand the keywords that might reflect the subject of a search query to trying to gain a semantic understanding of the query subject itself. In a way this simplifies things, as it frees up more time to create content your audience finds relevant and useful.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/seo/4-tips-prepare-googles-ever-changing-seo-strategy-0863219#qTrFpQ46Wl5zK2Gz.99

In 2013, we not only saw updates to two of the most significant Google algorithms — Panda and Penguin — but also the release of Hummingbird, all of which affect SEO efforts to a great extent. The following tips will help you to stay up to date with the latest algorithms and plan your strategy for potential SEO changes in the future.

1. Avoid Shortcuts 
Pretty much all of the advice written in the past few years for improving SEO in the wake of Google’s Panda (2011), Penguin (2012) and Hummingbird (2013) algorithm updates still applies, but is perhaps even more relevant in 2014. Since the introduction of Panda and Penguin especially, businesses who have tried to cheat their way to the top have been penalized with a lower position on search engine rankings and, with the further improvements to these two algorithms, websites use spammy content can expect an even more severe penalty.
2. Improve Your Content Marketing
Content marketing has moved from being merely useful to of central importance to SEO strategies this year. Google’s algorithm changes continue to shift the focus from keywords to subjects - from trying to understand the keywords that might reflect the subject of a search query to trying to gain a semantic understanding of the query subject itself. In a way this simplifies things, as it frees up more time to create content your audience finds relevant and useful.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/seo/4-tips-prepare-googles-ever-changing-seo-strategy-0863219#qTrFpQ46Wl5zK2Gz.99

SEOP is a recognized digital marketing leader that tests in real time how its SEO strategies impact against algorithm shifts. Learn how the most skilled, most experienced, and most trusted name in search engine optimization can help you grow your business and dominate your competition here.

REPOST: The Simple Truth About SEO

Forbes contributor Brent Beshore met up with highly experienced business owners to talk about the real deal on SEO. The meeting provided him with simple, yet valuable SEO insights which he further discussed in the article below.

Image Source: forbes.com

 

A couple weeks ago, I got a call from one of our portfolio company’s CEOs, who was frustrated by his confusion around SEO. He felt like he just couldn’t get a straight answer. Each “expert” claimed to know the secret sauce and recommended different strategies, most of which they (eventually) admitted could result in Google GOOG -0.34% penalizing the site.

I set up a meeting with a small group of highly experienced entrepreneurs who had built multiple Inc. 500 companies with SEO as a primary marketing strategy. Here’s what they explained:

The secret is that there is no secret. SEO isn’t complicated. Like anything, there is a depth of knowledge that helps fine-tune strategies, but 90 percent is merely about consistently doing what feels natural and testing. They specifically cautioned against trusting anyone who claimed to have an inside track. Instead, they recommended focusing on amplifying what feels like a natural extension of the business.

Do the basics. Google needs to be able to determine a general ballpark of where your organization is relevant. Proper site structure, meta tags, and keywords still matter, but they’re just the start.

Everything is moving to quality. Search engines want to provide the most relevant information. It used to be far easier to game the system with loads of links and specific anchor text. Times change. Now, the signals of relevancy revolve around a far more diverse set of information like social endorsement, repeat traffic, frequent mentions, and helpful content.

Links still matter, with qualification. Google rose to prominence because of PageRank, which was based on how academics use citations to determine relevancy. Google equated links to citations and revolutionized the search industry. Links haven’t gone away, but evolved. Instead of merely looking at the link and anchor text, Google is analyzing many factors, including the traffic derived from the link (indicating interest) and surrounding text. The entrepreneurs recommended focusing on helpful, relevant content for links instead of a specific “link-building” campaign.

Pay attention to social signals. The biggest change in recent years is a move toward social signaling, although they said it has moved slower than they anticipated. Search engines are trying to gauge actual authority, and a robust social following is a strong indicator. Google+ is an obvious signal. They believe that while social builds slowly and without strong ROI, the socially rich will continue to get richer.

Video is tough to “game.” Search engines are putting more weight on areas that are tougher to game. Video is expensive to produce and, subsequently, is not used as frequently in questionable tactics. They recommended incorporating it into the marketing plan as a secondary strategy.

Product integrations are providing mountains of data. Google has always been acquisitive and has amassed an incredible array of products that are constantly throwing off data that’s being used to validate relevancy. From Gmail and Google Maps to the Chrome web browser and Google+, the number of checkpoints around a company is staggering. This allows Google to be incredibly adept at distinguishing “SEO tactics” from normal operating protocol.

SEOP is one of the finest in search engine optimization and digital marketing. Visit this website to learn how the company can put your brand on top of competition through its extensive range of award-winning, high-impact strategies tailored to your unique requirements.

REPOST: Matt Cutts: Write Clear, Understandable Content

In Google's Webmaster Help Forum, Matt Cutts provides tips on how technical content should be researched, produced, and delivered in order to encourage positive interaction and engage the general consumer audience. Search Engine Watch collates the highlights of his discussion.

Image Source: searchenginewatch.com

 
As webmasters, it's constantly drilled into us that quality content is key as part of an SEO strategy. But when it comes to more technical content, how should you handle it?

Should your content be geared toward a higher, more specialized reading level, or should it be written in such a way that novices on the topic can understand? This is the topic of the latest webmaster help video featuring Google's Matt Cutts.

Many webmasters are hyper analyzing their content lately to ensure that however they present the content and readiness is going to rank the best in Google. But how can you find this balance between super technical writing and writing aimed at the general public who might be interested in the topic but don't have knowledge behind it to understand the more complex discussion or vocabulary?

Cutts began by sharing what is likely a familiar scenario for many. You end up at Wikipedia trying to find background information on a topic, but it's either way too technical or simply not understandable.

"So you see this sort of revival of people who are interested in things like 'explain it to me like I'm a 5-year-old'," Cutts said. "You don't have to dumb it down that much. but if you're erring on the side of clarity, and on the side of something that's going to be understandable, you'll be in much better shape because regular people can get it, and then ... feel free to include the scientific terms or the industry jargon, the lingo, or whatever it is."

It seems Cutts believes you should strive to strike the right balance between technical writing while still ensuring that the average person can understand it.

"You need to find some way to pull people in, to get them interested, to get them enticed to try to pick up whatever concept it is you want to explain," Cutts said. "So I would argue, first and foremost, you need to explain it well, and then if you can manage to do that while talking about the science or being scientific, that's great."

Cutts said that how you explain a topic often matters almost as much as what you're actually saying.

"If you're saying something important but you can't get it across, then sometimes you never get across in the first place, and it ends up falling on deaf ears," he said.

What about if your target audience is a group of people that are industry professionals or have the same sites reference you? You don't necessarily want to alienate that audience because you dumb it down too much for the general public.

But on the other hand, you want your content to be approachable by the masses, because that opens you to a much wider audience than the smaller group of technical people you might currently target.

Sometimes it's about finding a balance or writing for two different audiences with different content for each.

"If you're only talking to industry professionals, exterminators were talking about the scientific names of bugs, and your audience is only exterminator experts, then that would make sense" Cutts said. "But in general I will try to make something is natural sounding as possible."

He also suggested a tried-and-true techniques that many people have used for years: reading your content aloud. Often you can pick up the little mistakes or the awkward sounding parts, such as excessive use of keywords, when you read it out loud.

"When I'm writing a blog post, I'll sometimes read it out loud to try to catch what the snags are, and where things are going to be unclear," Cutts said. "Anything you do like that you'll end up with more polished writing, and that's more likely to stand the test of time."

Bottom line, don't focus on being so technical that you're excluding a lot of the audience that might want to learn more about your topic, but just can't understand it because you're not explaining it well.

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REPOST: Rethinking search query and its impact on SEO

The algorithm has changed so has the SEO industry's strategies.  This article from SEOP discusses Google's system updates and their impact on current SEO practices.

For the longest time, much of SEO has been built around search queries that focus on the keyword. Now, we know that focusing on keywords alone is not enough, especially with the changes Google has undergone in the last few years. This includes the roll out of the Hummingbird search algorithm. It has become important for us to rethink of search queries if we ever want to optimize web content more effectively.

Queries have been traditionally modeled after keywords that often look like phrases such as ‘New York Hotels’ or ‘Auto Title Loans’. But as Google endeavors to help users find information that is relevant to them, the search engine no longer simply relies on the words that were typed in the search box. Instead, it tries to determine the user’s intent whenever he runs a search so that the most relevant results are provided. And where does Google get the user’s intent? From his context.

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As discussed in a previous article, Google is able to see the context of the user by looking at various sources of information. For example, search results will usually be different for those accessing Google through a mobile device. If the user is logged into his account when he runs a search on a desktop computer, Google can leverage his past searches or listed interests to modify search results. Being logged into Google or using a mobile device, along with other possible signals that are yet to be identified, form the implicit aspect of a query. Google uses these to give more detailed answers that cater to what the user may want or need when running a search.

How will this affect SEO now and in the future? As we see Google moving us toward a world where search queries are entirely based on the user’s context, should we start letting go of keywords when optimizing content? The truth is, as long as we’re dependent on language to look for information online, keyword optimization will remain relevant. However, there is a need to look beyond keywords and more at context, and we can do this by focusing more on the topics we put in our content.

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