From “The Jon Rognerud Elite SEO Interview Series”: Jill Whalen. In this post, learn more about SEO as compared with “common” knowledge. You might be surprised to hear . . .
Jill Whalen has been in the business of search engine optimization for more than 13 years, and certainly for many years more than most of us. The breadth of experience, knowledge and real-world application has been witnessed and run “up close and personal” by Jill herself. I was pleasantly surprised to hear her intriguing answers about SEO and search in general, simpler than that of most notaries in the field, and a very personal approach too. Super refreshing, I’d say–and it’s very easy to understand for non-techie folks.
She really believes there is no magic bullet, but a set of SEO best practices combined with always testing, tracking and staying on top of your work and the (competitive) marketplaces.
She has a deep wealth of knowledge and a true passion. No wonder people quickly sign up for her SEO training classes. She keeps very busy at her High Rankings office outside Boston.
I was really interested to hear more about SEO, training issues, myths and more. What follows is our interview recently.
(Ed.Note: I have organized this interview into three sections: 1. beginners/training, 2. industry standards and 3. SEO myths. You’ll see a BONUS resource section at the end).
Hi Jill.Before we begin, can you tell me a bit about yourself, how you got started and about your company, High Rankings?
Sure, Jon. I started with a parenting website back in 1993. I was trying to figure out how to make sure my site was found on Lycos, Excite, Infoseek. I looked at the search engines’ results for parenting keywords, realized it was the words on the page that was making them show up. I was also doing some web design work for small businesses, and used what I had learned on those sites. By ‘97 I decided to concentrate on SEO, as it was more specialized and I had gained knowledge that nobody else had. By 2000 I started my e-mail newsletter, which helped me to be further known in the industry.
A. TRAINING, LEARNING (1-10)
1. So much information on the net–what can a person trust? How to get the “right” information–and what are good training institutions?
Yes, there is so much info. SEO education is a large part of my business. That’s why I originally started our newsletter (The High Rankings Advisor): to provide free, good advice. And the same with our High Rankings SEO Forum. It’s also why we’ve offered SEO seminars since 2002 and now SEO training classes on a monthly basis.
Part of the problem with knowing whose information to trust is that there are so many ways to do SEO. It doesn’t mean that one way is right and another wrong. That’s why I would recommend reading a variety of stuff and see what makes sense to you. Perhaps one SEO method connects more with you than another. Once you find a method or person that you connect with, stick with [it] and don’t go reading everyone else’s stuff. Too many opposing views can be confusing. Some SEOs play a numbers game and others (like me) use common sense. I don’t look at putting any specific number of words on a page or how much keyword density a page should have or how long a title tag should be. There is no best answer for those things, as every page and every site is different.
Attending industry conferences such as SMX and SES is also a good idea, once you have already established your SEO methods. You can often get some great nuggets of info from the panelists, as well as during the networking events.
2. How do you get buy-off from management to go to SEO training and what works best (off-site, or weekly calls/webinars, etc)?
Every company has different SEO training needs. It really depends on what they’ve already been doing and their current knowledge and skills. Unfortunately, a lot of top management doesn’t understand the value that SEO can bring to the table. They may have tried it in the past and not received any results, so they believe it doesn’t work. Companies that may have their own in-house SEO can also benefit from working with an outside consultant or attending a training class. For larger companies, it often makes sense for them to have someone come in and consult in order to get all the departments on board with the program. Sometimes just bringing IT and marketing together on the same page can help get buy-in from the higher-ups. These folks don’t always understand how much work is involved with SEO. The messaging, content and structure will change, so it is critical to involve everyone who might touch the website.
In the end, the easiest way to sell upper management on SEO is to explain to them that if people (clients) cannot find their website, they’re leaving dollars on the table, and that money is likely going to their competitors. It’s as simple as that.
3. What’s the best way to learn SEO? Reading? By doing? And how to keep current with the constant changes (Google algorithm, for example)?
The best way to learn SEO is, as Nike likes to say, “just do it.” Sure, there are a million conferences, books and classes being pitched everywhere. You can sign up for them all, but if at the end of the day you don’t simply roll up your sleeves and see what works for your site and what doesn’t, then what’s the point?
There are always new things to learn, of course, but once your site is in relatively good shape, there’s no need to sit and tweak it every day. Sure, continue to build / get links, provide good info for your users, but no need to make drastic changes just because you think the search engines might like it.
4. Loaded question: What is the true secret to search engine rankings?
Easy! The secret is to think about what search engines actually want. And that is: the best, most relevant pages to show up for their users–the searchers. They want to show their users pages that answer the searchers’ questions. So if you can figure out what the searchers are asking Google, and then answer those questions on your website, that’s it.
It’s unfortunate when people are only wrapped up in one keyword phrase and ignore the thousands of other phrases that are being typed into the search engines, which may be relevant to their website. Since most websites are more than just one page, it’s important to remember that each page is a gateway to other pages. You should be optimizing for the thousands of phrases that relate to what you offer, not just one or two. But this doesn’t mean you have to shoot for just long tail keywords. You’ll get those naturally by just having good content. My approach involves optimizing for three to five keywords per page, which all have varying degrees of competitiveness.
5. The best way to find quality links? And are directories really useful? For example, submitting to 100 directories?
Finding quality links is always tricky. If you’re dealing with a brand new site, then sure, starting with directory submissions may at least get you started. But don’t expect much traffic from those links. My feeling is that the only good links are those that bring visitors to your site. But those take time to get. You have to have something worth linking to in order to get quality links and, unfortunately, most sites don’t have anything worth linking to. They’re simply the same as every other site selling the same or similar products/services. If you provide unique information on your site and also get the word out about it–you will get natural links that will bring you traffic and help your rankings. Like with my High Rankings site, I have never asked for links; they just come to me because people like what they see. As with everything in SEO, it’s critical to take a long-term approach to gaining links. If you have a great site but don’t have the time to deal with this aspect, then outsourcing to a good linking company is probably a smart idea. People like Debra Mastaler always come up with creative linking strategies for their clients. It’s quite a specialized skill.
6. Starting a new website: What are the top ways to start the traffic (thinking SEO, PPC, e-mail marketing, and more)?
Traditional marketing, advertising and public relations. You must be out there and get the word out about your awesome site. Social media can play a big part these days if you truly participate in the communities that target your audience. Look for relevant blogs and forums where you can become a participating member. Twitter is another possibility for getting the word out if that’s somewhere your target market hangs out. (To me, Twitter is really nothing more than an online chat room–only you get to choose those whom you want to listen to.) Just remember that a new website will not be generating traffic overnight–unless you are backed by a huge marketing budget. So keep participating, and have perseverance and patience. Stick true to your original goals. Unfortunately, too many people give up too soon. They want it now, but it doesn’t work that way.
7. Fastest ways to get to first page of Google (within 24 hours) for a brand new site?
There is no way unless you’re talking about some completely obscure keyword phrase. So your best bet would be to do Google AdWords, if 24 hours is your goal. For organic SEO, you first need to get indexed (get your pages into their database), which means you need links–because that’s how Google finds sites. So make sure that someone somewhere is linking to you. But even then, I think there’s still a bit of an aging delay for new domains, so just don’t count on getting to the first page of Google until your site has matured a bit.
8. To outrank the competition, what are the three steps one should take?
I don’t look at how to outrank the competition. I prefer to look at our own website traffic and which phrases convert, and then I try to gain more targeted traffic and convert more of it. You can drive yourself nuts looking too closely at the competition. For one thing, just because they’re ranking well doesn’t mean they’re doing things correctly. I’ve seen people who will just copy what their competition is doing, no matter how dumb it seems or how much it actually ruins their website. There are far better ways to optimize. For example, look at other opportunities, other keyword phrases that you hadn’t previously thought about and optimize for those. Then work on increasing your conversions. Do some conversion testing using tools like GWO (Google Website Optimizer). Just remember that a conversion is not always a sale. It could be folks signing up to your newsletter, someone commenting on your blog, someone filling out a request form, or someone emailing or calling you. Try to measure and test as much as you can, but only after you’ve got your SEO basics in order.
9. Do free press-release services work for rankings?
(Examples: prfree.com, prleap.com, 24-7pressrelease.com, free-press-release.com, etc.)
Are there free ones still around? I think most have gone to paid–only because they were getting so much spam submitted by SEOs who thought keyword-rich releases would be their key to search engine rankings. I don’t personally believe they’re useful for that at all anymore. Press releases should be used for what they were intended to be used for–showcasing important news about your company.
10. Should a company set up a blog? If so, why? Certainly blogs are a good way to add content to a website, as well as to gain a following and build up some sort of community. If the blog actually provides unique info that nobody else provides, it can generate links. But as with everything else, blogs are no magic bullet. You must create a strategy and post on a regular basis, with a long-term commitment. Otherwise, you won’t see any benefit from it.
B. INDUSTRY STANDARDS (1-5)
(Two-For-One): 1. It’s much like a Wild West out there. What is a business to do in trying to find good, trusted SEOs?
2. What standards–if any–exist on the process and other business issues?
There are currently no standards for the industry, nor should there be. It’s fine for organizations such as SEMPO to have standards that their members must abide by, but broadly–as industry–standards are not the answer. Every company can and should have its code of ethics, and its own way of marketing its services, but only organizations can have standards, in my opinion.
3. Pricing for SEO services. How does pricing vs. quality vs. brand fit into this? With SEO, higher prices don’t always mean better quality. There is no magic price point for SEO services, as every company is free to charge whatever the market will bear. That’s the beauty of a capitalistic society. Charge whatever your customers are willing to pay. For those looking to purchase SEO services, they’ll want to look well beyond pricing. Look at years of experience and–even more so–results. Do they bring more targeted traffic to their clients’ websites? Be sure to get references from satisfied clients.
4. What places to get a membership from do you recommend? I’m not big on memberships, although we did just rejoin SEMPO this year after many years away. Some companies use memberships as a way to increase their perceived credibility. That’s fine, but I think that those looking to hire companies should be looking well beyond how many member organizations the company belongs to. That doesn’t tell you anything other than it likes to purchase memberships. Local search marketing organizations are another matter. They often provide great networking opportunities that you don’t get with larger, national organizations. A few years ago I co-founded the Search Engine Marketing New England (SEMNE) organization. It’s been a great way to get to know others in our area. These types of organizations are starting to crop up in many different cities, and I highly recommend them to anyone in the business.
5. Why do search agencies/companies not get together to create a better level of communication on the topic of SEO? Actually, I think our industry does a great job in getting together to share techniques. It’s one of the things that makes me proud to be part of it. (Jon: From my internet marketing company and general online marketing business, we see a lot of “black box”-type conversation, and I don’t believe that hiding what you are doing makes any sense. Keep the conversation open and transparent).
C. SEO MYTHS – JON’S “TOP 20″ LIST (1-20)
1. Dynamic vs. static URLS? How important are usability and static, clean URLs vs. dynamic? If your dynamic URLs are indexed, there’s usually no need to change them. There’s certainly some benefits in terms of the clickability for the friendlier URLs, but there’s not much benefit for rankings–certainly not enough to mess with your current system. Using the site: command at Google to see what URLs it has indexed and help you decide if it’s something worth doing.
2. Keyword density must be in the 3 percent to 5 percent range for good ranking. No such thing as an optimal keyword density. (Jon: Theme density or term weighting?) Jill: I don’t put stock in those things, and generally think many people overanalyze things.
3. TITLE tags cannot be optimized for more than one keyword. (Jon: I checked to see how many allintitle:untitled documents there were in Google–more than 28 million. Don’t users recognize the power of unique, quality titles?)Titles not only can be optimized for more than one keyword phrase, but they almost always should be. Three phrases is great to shoot for in titles. They are definitely one of the most important factors in SEO, so use them to their fullest extent.
4. Having a google webmaster account will help rankings. Hmmm . . . there are some cool things to learn by using the tool, such as discovering 404 errors and such. But when I review sites with it, I find that not everything is accurate. They’ll tell you that your site has duplicate titles when it doesn’t and things like that. So I take it with a grain of salt. In terms of rankings, using the tool won’t help you there.
5. Universal search is easier to rank (video, news, etc.) than standard text/page listings. Wow, I’ve not heard that one. Universal search is still a work in progress. What works today may not work tomorrow; it’s in a constant flux. Experiment with different things to see what might work at any given time with it.
6. Black hat works, but you have to work it harder than ever. (Jon: I heard somewhere that Google handles 1 million requests daily. How is this game played out in the real world?) I couldn’t tell ya–but for the average business, there is no need for it. Perhaps if you are in the Viagra or gambling space, but there’s no need for real companies with real websites to use black hat techniques–it’s just asking for trouble.
7. To rank, just get some links–natural and paid + article marketing. That’s it? Yeah, if you only want long tail traffic that will work. But personally, I like to get my clients traffic from highly searched keyword phrases. So there’s much more to SEO than writing articles and getting a handful of links.
8. SEO in the future is not going to be so much about content, but social media and links. The best SEO of the future will be analysts, not copywriters. No! SEO is not one thing or another. It’s a combo of content, links and site analysis. Also, nobody wants to link to a crappy site–that will always be true.
9. Keyword research is easy: Just use free tools (Google, seobook) and don’t worry about wordtracker and others. The free tools in the past were not so good, but they have been revamped. Google’s latest version of its keyword tool, however, is very good. The paid KW services may be in trouble.
10. You don’t need an XML sitemap to rank. That is correct.
11. Duplicate content filtering is not a big issue anymore (Google) (consider onpage and offpage/syndication issues). No duplicate content penalties exist for the average run-of-the mill duplicate content. Sure, there is filtering but not penalties; some versions of the content simply won’t show in the search results. You don’t have to worry too much about syndication. If you get traffic and credibility by syndicating your articles, then by all means, do it.
12. Fix canonical issues via Google webmaster central only, no need to worry about .htaccess file on the server? Surprisingly, this is not the problem it used to be. The way I check this is to do a search of your page in Google using the non-www version. If Google shows at the top that it is the cached version of www.yoursite.com (as opposed to yoursite.com), then you’ll know they see the www and the non-www as the same. Every single site I’ve checked this way over the past six to nine months was fine. It doesn’t hurt to redirect the non-www version to your www version, however; it’s just not as necessary as it once was.
13. Pagerank is critical to good ranking. Real PageRank is important–Google toolbar PageRank, not so much. Don’t get tricked it into thinking that toolbar PageRank has any correlation to real PageRank. (Jon: yeah, I had a client that said success is if you “move me from PR4 to PR5″ [I told the client no]). Which brings up a good point about increasing toolbar PageRank as not being the end goal of SEO campaign. I’m always amazed at how many people contact me with that as their goal . . . it’s so silly.
14. Since Google now can crawl and index Flash, you can start using this broadly on your sites? I haven’t tested it yet, but they have been saying that for years, so I don’t really have much faith in how well they actually index it. Not to mention that there’s rarely any worthwhile info contained in Flash anyway. Plus, there are still many devices–for example the iPhone–where they don’t even show flash. On the other hand, Flash used sparingly is fine. Just don’t put your entire site in it.
15. It is better to have many links rather than fewer, more quality links. Quality, trusted links are better. They’re harder to get, which is why they count for so much and why people just go for quantity.
16. If you have international presence, just get the country-specific TLDs and you will rank higher. I don’t do a lot of international work, but we have some great information in the international section of our forum.
17. If an existing site is a 10- to 15-page brochure-ware with lots of graphics and flash, the site cannot be ranked. Big myth. Sure you can be ranked. Optimize pages as much as you can, and get enough links with the appropriate anchor text. It can be done, but may be an uphill battle if you don’t have any optimized content.
18. How deep is the penetration of SEO in the marketplace? A year ago, Gartner Group research papers didn’t even show the term “SEO.” It’s still under the radar? I don’t have any specific data, but from my own experience with over 13 years in the business, more people and businesses understand what SEO is and that they need it. Plus, there are many more companies out there offering it as a service. I really wish more design companies would understand it more or partner with SEO companies because I see tons of new sites getting developed with absolutely no signs of SEO, which is sad for 2008.
19. You can rank in Google with no (incoming) links, for fairly competitive keywords as well. Typically no, you can’t. There are always some crazy anomalies, though.
20. Google will rank a .com faster than a .org .info or .tv. This is a myth.
BONUS SECTION: RESOURCES
Jill, what are some good blogs and other resources/links to review for a beginner?
The best resource for SEO beginners (if I do say so myself) is the stuff we put out at High Rankings. The SEO newsletter, the SEO forum, our SEO training, etc. It’s all very comprehensive, down-to-earth and easy to understand.
In addition, I also frequently visit Sphinn, as most decent articles and blog posts about SEO get posted there. You do have to filter out some of the noise, however. Search Engine Guide, Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch also have a lot of good articles.
Thanks for your time, Jill. See you at the next conference, perhaps either Pubcon (Las Vegas) or SES Chicago!
(Disclaimer: There is good news here too–but only if you take immediate action. Warning: Some of this is considered “advanced SEO” for my readers).
As part of a recent string of search marketing interviews , I was personally looking forward to this one. Not just because he is an authority and master at the craft of SEO, but for the insights, vision and consistent trusted action he provides in the field of search and more.
Aaron Wall is the author of SEOBOOK a leading blog, community and online training program focused on the search engine marketing space. He also does limited client work with his partner, Scott Smith, through Clientside SEM.
Personally, I must tell you, dear reader of my blog, that SEO (search engine optimization) basics are really dead simple. The steps to get to top rankings and broader search engine visibility are truly straightforward. However, if not followed and not done to ethical SE standards, they can have a serious negative impact on your online efforts. Make note of the final question below and subsequent reference. It could kill your business and–as you’ll see–it actually did!
Get started by establishing your objectives and key results from a business perspective. They should at minimum include keyword strategies, traffic projections, ranking goals and conversion percent metrics. Create your SWOT document (strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and overall marketing approach, or you could face disaster. Time, money and resources wasted–and, potentially, if you are going grey/black hat–even the *dreaded search engine ban from Google.*
Healthy competition can actually be an asset, as you’ll see. It always intends to bring noise to your day (perhaps competitors are even clicking on your own ads and trying to push you down/out with search engine reputation management tactics), but that noise can be turned down in your marketplace. Make sure to study their movements, read this guide and do something a bit more extraordinary in your niche. Don’t be sleazy and copy competitors outright. It’s OK to take ideas and move those to the next level yourself, though.
“Think unique, be different” is what Wall says. On that note, pick up a copy of the Purple Cowfrom internet marketer idea man Seth Godin. A standout idea can bring about massive change for your business and its subscribers, if done correctly. Aaron’s own SEOBOOK and blog certainly have done that, enjoyed by the SEO/M community and beyond.
Here is the common SEO process outline:
Keyword map/Strategy
WebSite Structure/Links
Onpage Optimization/Pages
External Profile development: Link-building, baiting and promo
Metrics, Analytics and Results: Mapping to goals outlined
Rinse, Refine, Repeat
If it’s so straightforward, how come so many cannot seem to “get” the search engine marketing process and online game? The truth is, there are so many moving parts. Your own business is in flux, plus there are changing marketplaces and varying search engine marketing techniques. You should consider this important advice and search marketing insights for your business. Again, don’t take it lightly, or it could mean poor rankings, low traffic or lack of quality conversions.
INTRODUCTION
How did you get started?
I had an existing site and started taking notes on it. It was mostly about formatting/layout and how to create a cleaner look and feel–a better visitor experience, in essence. This was back in 2003. At that time, I met a guy online, a professional photographer from Greece. He ran into my site and wanted to hire me, right over a chat system, in fact. I was amazed, because my grammar and writing were not that great at the time, and I was still learning SEO (that really never ended). He did headshot photography, and after I started helping him–and within a few months–he started getting very good leads. Things grew quickly from there. When the (Google) Florida update happened, I wrote an article about it and it was very well-received. I got my 15 seconds of fame. Over time, from a few leads to a steady flow of them and people calling me almost every day, it got pretty exciting. However, I realized that to scale, I needed to create a hybrid model of SEO and online marketing education versus a straight consulting model–where I didn’t have to do all the work. SEOBOOK.com was formed.
What is most rewarding about working in this marketplace?
I enjoy working on our own mix of sites. However, SEOBOOK is the flagship, and most of my time is spent there. The other sites are doing pretty [well], but are more under the radar, not as visible. It feels good to be a central guy in the community, but I like to grow things naturally and not always aggressively. I enjoy helping others.
If you have no VC money or serious online budgets, competing in a global marketplace can be hard. However, if you have a great idea, it can help immensely to get good exposure if it’s a good fit for the marketplace, with your product or service. The small guy can compete with the bigger guy. (Jon: Wall prefers to be real, not glossy, and he sees that many people have a short attention span: checking earnings every day/hours, checking ad spend, checking forums, building new pages/sites, reading news, twittering: ADD is a real problem online).
More and more people feed each other online. The line on what’s bought/sold versus what’s free is becoming thinner. There is an erosion of (quality) copywriting. It’s harder and harder to maintain a good stance, unless you have a good product/service or lots of interactivity, social trust in the network, people recommendations and a strong brand.
Over the next year or two I plan on working hard to keep building the quality of SEOBOOK and our other sites. I just hired Peter Da Vanzo from Search Engine Blog to be an author for SEOBOOK.
(Ok, thanks – let’s start on my SEO “hardcore” list):
1. LSI/LSA: Are search engines using it, and is this an important focus for rankings? (Keywords: Synonyms, related keywords, ontology, thesaurus, lexfn.com, l3xicon.com, Google sets, keyword relationships, “theme density” versus “keyword density”)
When the Florida update happened, if a page was targeting too aggressively, pages would be stopped and no more ranking. Most commercial sites were gaming the money pages and keywords at that time. Back then, search engines were trying to figure out whether text was natural or not. However, times and SEs (search engines) have changed.
In today’s search engines, (example) if the keyword phrase or term is “computer animated design,” they can tell that the word “CAD” is related to it and will highlight that in the search engines. (Ed note: here are few articles to explain changes and how Google views rankings: 1) Intro to Google Ranking | 2) Technology behind Google Ranking).
SEs are changing from “give me what I said” to “give me what I want.” They are moving to knowing what people are searching for, and it’s an ongoing activity to locate users’ true intent. (”…Google uses a best-in-class spelling suggestion system, an advanced synonyms system and a very strong concept analysis system, a world class localization system. . .”). So is something like latent semantic indexing used? Most certainly! In search queries–you’ll see the “related searches” at top or bottom–in other words, they “know.” Sometimes you can see where they screwed up mathematically. They are testing all the time, and it’s of course all about relevancy.
How about “machine-based learning”? Google’s Peter Norvig talks about “machine learning algos,” but [Google isn't] using those for a number of reasons. One is that the algo currently in place is better than a machine could do it, and they believe a “black swan event” can be catastrophic on real data versus test/training data, and not worth it.
2. Siloing/Theming: Is it true you can structure a site to rank for top keywords without any incoming links? (Jon – examples to study: Virtual/Physical Siloing: http://www.cabelas.com (virtual), http://www.allaboutlawns.com/ (physical))
With no external citation or trust, it gets really hard. We know you can rank pages if you have a lot of links with no page content. We also know you can rank pages with relevant structure and quality content with related keywords on the page. Content and links together are important, but many things are not understood. I mean, you can show on/off factors, but there will be things you still won’t get. (Google reserves that privilege.)
In a Rockstar Show 2006–Oilman and Greg Boser were on a show with Matt Cutts. Matt didn’t say why a particular site was not ranking, but there’s no doubt that old links and site trust, matching of keywords in anchor text and related onpage factors are cornerstones of successful ranking.
Aaron, should you even bother with siloing then?Wall: If the site is totally screwed up, it’s not just about siloing. Find out what are the most competitive phrases and build more link equity. If you have the relationships set up–and top keywords–go after the most important pages. You are distributing link equity, and in proportion to what is needed, to rank.
You need to acquire link juice to make it more valuable. Markets change, language online–they change over time. For example, there was no search volume from the term “seo book.” That was turned over time. I created a brand, and both worked to create volume for it. As more time passed, “seo training” got to be more important, for example.
Keywords are important to go after but can be a moving target. It may make more sense to silo if you are writing about”The history of the Civil War”–keywords are not going to change there. Amazon, for example, is different with its subcategories and niches. Keywords and markets are going to change often. So they have to lift inner pages and work on building links to it.
3. Ah, “Pagerank Sculpting”. Should one bother with it? And, will Google penalize you for being an “SEO”? (Others say that “no-follow” use on a site can easily be tracked, but I say so can analysis of a keyword-rich anchor text linking program). Should you worry about being penalized or “sand-boxed”?
Matt Cutts said that internal sculpting can help you. Think of Pagerank as units of dollar. If you want to know how to spend it best, how would you approach your site/pages? You can spend the dollar more wisely and go after a marketplace to get $300 worth of a link. However, it may make sense for legal reasons, but not for ranking. If you are a large corporation, it may be totally fine. The issue is, if you have small site, with aggressive tactics, content recycled, low-quality external links, broken links everywhere: Google will ask: “could this be spam”? Knowing SEO does not make you a bad person. SEO techniques mimic stuff that happens anyway. Deceive or Dupe? Plausible deniability–powerful SEO tools and affiliate marketers? Ask yourself this: “If you don’t have a large brand, and Google deleted you from the index, would anybody else care?” (Jon: see overpenalization elsewhere)
4. Keyword research: How has this changed over the years, and what tools do you recommend for beginners? How to start? Should a business focus on heads or tails? (Jon: Aaron has a new kick-ass keyword book , which personally is recommended reading ($39), for both new and more advanced alike. Heads=Head/Main keyword, Tail=Long Tail, typically 3 words or more).
Find a word that you can make up to mean something important over time, or find a word that’s already established, like “San Diego Real Estate.” If you are a new SEO, try to rank for “local seo” or “link building” or “web marketing consulting.” Be leader in a niche; don’t start too broad.
The network effects linger on the web. For example, before I was known for SEO, I was known for a guy who wrote the “SEO book.” It’s well known that longer tail terms convert well, but some businesses are head-heavy, others tail-heavy. Other heads are massive in traffic.
Also, I recommend buying a bunch of pay-per-click ads, check for performance, look at the competition and see how their keywords and pages are structured. Use traditional keyword tools (Google Keyword Tool, SEOBOOK Keyword Tool), look at traffic reports (Compete Search Analytics): That’s what the search engines think it’s about. You should also look at keyword difficulty–ad intelligence. Microsoft shares data, and you may want to get the Microsoft 2007 Excel plugin.
You can easily find important site data from SERPS using the tool. Sometimes people are ranking because of a 9-year-old domain, number of links, etc. This tool gives you an ability to look at variances, rather than look at “cold” numbers. Look for a guy that’s “weaker” on the page.
Jon: You can go to page 2 and ask to buy a site or domain and lift it.Wall: Yes, there is no award for starting from scratch, shorten the span, get an edge quickly. (Editor’s note: snapnames.com, droppingdomains.com, pool.com can prove useful to pick up expiring domains or join auctions) Wall: NameJet and TDNam are good, too, but if you are buying for SEO benefit it is better to buy live, active sites rather than expired domains. The first spam domain Google found was a porn site built on an expired domain name, so they don’t like them much.
5. Link building. What are the easiest ways to get links that are “white-hat” for a new website? We know relevancy, quality, trust are important, but how does a newbie figure this out? Also, what is “too fast” (link building). After a backlink report is run, can/should you “fix” the anchor text to be more relevant? What is “too perfect” for link building? Can you be penalized?
Penalization comes from too fast, via automation. If you are new to the web, the odds of getting links too fast is pretty low. If you approach it with one foot in the sand, toe in the water so to speak, you’ll be OK. If you have a big brand and related strategy, they’ll be fine: You’ll probably have more link quality and trust. And if you get tons of links, it will not hurt you. But if you receive 1,000 links for $20 bucks (Jon: you see these bogus linking claims and programs out there; don’t fall for it) then it gets easier to get whacked and removed from Google.
If you are just starting out on the web, if you have friends, business suppliers, in the same industry, etc., ask them for link sources. Then add a couple of general directories, yahoo, business, botw (best of the web), get some more links, and use articles and press releases, too. The key is to look at the SEO Firefox results and get a competitive measure of what people are doing, so you can know what to rank for. Track how the competitors are getting links (Jon: Free backlink tools: Yahoo Site Explorer, Link Diagnosis w/Firefox Plugin, BackLinkAnalyzer). Look at joining industry associations, get links from guys at conferences, review products or think about give-aways of software, tools, something of value to people. If you can take something that is currently for sale, make it better and give it away, then market it aggressively, you’re on your way.
(Oops, cell phone battery dies, we switch to another five minutes later, we’re on a roll now . . . )
If incoming anchor text keywords match domain, that’s great, but mix up keywords naturally. For example, “seobook,” “aaron’s seo book,” “aaron’s seo site” vary the text. For a few links don’t worry. But as you scale, don’t make them the same, because it could affect rankings. Paid links–well, I don’t get into it too much–and certainly not through known networks. We have tried to get many links and got them naturally, creating quality stuff. It doesn’t make sense to now get them for a paid exchange. Certainly, don’t do it right away.
You should look at incremental cost, versus incremental value.
Directories, however, is a great way to start. They are trusted and help out the sites. Some of the smaller ones have a good value, too, not too costly. Organic links are a marketing and advertising function, so you can buy links indirectly by sponsoring events, be seen at conferences and network everywhere. Paid links are a funny thing–for example, people hire people for public relations. They get paid, and you get links and press mentions. Is that against the guidelines? I doubt it (and a big laugh).
6. The top three fastest ways to traffic generation for a site or blog (different strategies)?
Sure, know your market well enough to solve real problems in it, then solve them (with free content or tools).
Link out to the people whom you want to talk about you (and make sure you click on your link a half dozen times or so such that the link shows up in their analytics data). Many leading publishers are egotistical and self-centered, and love reading about themselves. (Jon: I received a cool project with a large, global financial company using this technique).
Be a contrarian or a brown-nose . . . concentrate on whichever fits your personality better.
7. What trends have you seen in the past three years for both SEO & PPC (myths, rising CPC, etc), and where do you see the next three years advancing? For example, we hear often “SEO is dead” and PPC is too expensive. What’s a search marketer to do?
What if Google didn’t exist and people talked about you anyway? You would probably want that “model!” What if you ranked number one or number two for “SEO” versus the eBay CEO saying “he’s the best.” It’s better to have people talk about you, favorable mentions. Give more value, and get people to talk about you. You need to be headed that way. (Jon: Links can perhaps be thought of in a similar way, too. Imagine having a link with the following anchor texts: A) “I know Jon Rognerud,” or B) “Jon Rognerud is a search engine optimization consultant,” or a link where Bill Gates notes: C) “Jon Rognerud is an authority seo consultant.” What provides the highest, most trusted result? Clearly the last example).
If the edges are kind of flaky anyway, not many people will talk about it. For example, one guy blogs every day, one guy has an affiliate marketing program, another is giving away tools, another propels by doing SEO community interviews. Maybe one guy does all of it. With more distribution channels, the better you can do. Like a social network. It’s easier when a space is new, but it will get harder as it matures, so pick areas of what you know and care about. Be really engaged. It’s hard to take it away from you. For example, it would be hard for Google to remove Entrepreneur.com from its index.
Also, success stories online–the ones that make money–are usually when people only give you half the story. A person may have lost $80,000 in his/her first year, but you only hear about the $100,000 positive yearly trend they captured. The ad networks don’t blab about you, nobody is interested in MLM schemes and short-lived money-making ideas, etc. But if you are in a niche in the passion zone, you have the advantage, and hard to take away from you. For example, you could be “SEO for legal” or “SEO for nonprofits.”
8. What is social media to you? And is it really different from SEO and link building/baiting?
I frequently chat with Brent Csutoras about social media stuff. In my opinion the interview you did with him is far better than anything I can say on the topic.
9. Spying on your competitors: What approach and tools do you recommend?
Instead of looking at software tools directly, view your competitors’ sites themselves as tools. Follow their press mentions; use Google Alerts, Blog Search, Blog Pulse. You should know the conversation in the marketplace. If you know that, you are aware of what people are talking about, what they are interested in. Know your marketplace better than anybody else. That’s the ultimate competitive research tool! Look at layout, structure and how they link to various pages. Compete Search Analytics is expensive at $199/month–but it’s totally worth it. Hitwise is also good, it gives you weighting (percentage of traffic); you can see the words that bring traffic. (Jon: I use keycompete.com. I recommend it). Google traffic estimator, the Microsoft online commercial intent tool, shows perceived value.
Google trends for websites is another useful tool. MSN has the ad intelligence tool–with category-related reports, top keywords in category. Sources are free. Take the results and plug them into the various tools for further analysis and strategy development.
10. What blog platform do you recommend for beginners. And what “must-have” (Wordpress) plug-ins for SEO are your “best of choice”?
Yes, I would recommend starting out with Wordpress because it is easy to use and has a large developer community. I use the SEO Title Tag plug-in, and edit my permalink structure to have the posts appear right under the root without a category name or the date in the URL.
11. Keyword to page ratio–let’s end the discussion–what is the “rule”? One to two keywords per page? three to six?
(Wall doesn’t think of it as that specific). Instead, see what people are doing in search results. If it’s really competitive, then perhaps you only use one keyword (to a page). If your competition is niching out a page for each term, it will be hard to beat them, but at least you know what you are up against. But sure, you can get more than one phrase on a page. For example, you may say: “here are my core keywords, and here’s a list of modifiers.” Combine those into the page and focus on building it out. Use Quintura, and hover over the keywords to see more. For example, you could have “dancing shoes” chosen as your target keyword, but it looks like people are searching more for “cheap dancing shoes.” You could build out a term for “discount comfortable dancing shoes on sale” and use sales, discount in H1 tags and related terms sprinkled throughout on your page. You can get a lot of modifiers in there and get a page that will rank for a wide array of terms that are related. Probably 200 words on a page are good for an e-commerce page. For an informational page you would generally want more, but it depends on the topic.
Content also has different purposes. Some content helps with conversion, others a public relations vehicle, and some content is backfill to monetize ads. Depending on your keyword/content strategy, it may take 10 minutes to write one article/page, or 12 articles/pages to support another. The best ideas should get the most of the time. It’s good to link off to trusted, authority sites and don’t try to be everything to everybody. Stuff to make things really special will just mean more time.
12. Do SEs really consider “over-optimization”? Can you be penalized for that?
Many pages end up getting filtered out of the search results if the backlinks, page title and page content are too precisely aligned against a particular keyword. Variation is key.
13. Restructuring an existing site that is “messy”: What is your approach? mod_rewrites, 301s or “start over”?
When possible, I like to keep the URLs where they are. But if I have to move some around, I make sure I keep the link equity flowing where it needs to by 301 redirecting the old URLs to their equivalent new locations.
14. When you see a new website for the first time, what are your criteria for determining if the site even has a “chance” to make it and–even more so–”survive” in the long term?
SEO for Firefox gives you baseline for links, popularity. Look at anchor text; it’s a website health checker. Check to see how rounded the site is. If the competing sites or other site has more links, balance it out, go after similar links.
15. What mix of links and content should a site have? For example, some sites go heavily after links both natural and paid, and have ranking success. What percentage blend do you prefer? For example, Starbucks ranks for first page for “coffee,” but no keywords on that (landing) page. Also, if you had a 100 incoming links, what should be the percentage of “keyword rich anchor text” (term you want to rank for) versus “brand name” or “alternate phrase”? Is index (page) penetration more important than more links?
It depends. One person could have many links already; another person is doing tools for linkbait, etc. It comes down to what are your strengths? It’s weighted to what you are really good at. You could be really visible online and doing socializing and getting links. You could be ranking for everything or ranked on page two for things. You could then write a really interesting report that people will link to, and you could be on page one for 5 percent for certain queries or page two and three for everything else. Look at results, look at strengths and balance out weaknesses. Yes, you could go out and ask people to change external anchor text, but webmasters will not likely change. I would not typically do it–perhaps it even was an accident that they added you–and they might even remove a link. When you feel there might be a risk, build new ones instead.
16. Ranking, traffic, conversion: Which area do you like to focus on first, and which provides the best long term strategic value?
If you get something that converts really well, then you can afford to buy PPC, for example. Conversion to me is an important thing to focus on, but in some competitive saturated industries you need “brand” and people talking about you to convert. Make sure to have community participation, and differentiate. Conversion is key, more than simply ranking.
17. On-page factors: In your recent Wordtracker “Kick Ass” Keyword Book you show the example of: <title>Free Online Poker Room Reviews</title>
<meta description=”Play free video poker online. We have rated the 10 best live poker websites offering you over $1,000 in free bonus credits.”/>
<h1>Best Poker Websites Ratings</h1>
<h2>Poker Sites With the Biggest Sign-up Credit Bonuses</h2> (related phrases site and website, singular/plural use of “credit,” mixed up order of keywords)
What is the optimum way to position and concentrate keywords on the page (metas + copy)?
It’s like I mentioned before: If something is “too good,” “too fast” or “too perfect,” it’s not preferred. So make it really good and natural. Think users, then search engines. Even if you make sales-oriented pages, make them really high quality. Average and below average are not recommended.
18. How can you test pages for conversion on a “live” organic page? Using a javascript to A/B test landing pages is close to “cloaking,” no?
If you are testing layouts and formats, search engines don’t view A/B testing with inclusion of javascript is spam or cloaking. However, if you turned off javascript in your browser and suddenly your “hidden” 2,000 words appeared on a page, that would not be good. Minor page changes are OK and related to your theme.
19. What are recommended books for online business, the “must reads” and “what you are reading now”?
Favorite books: “Clay Shirky,” “Here comes everybody,” “Purple Cow.” The “Cluetrain Manifesto” is something to read also. The web is becoming more like a “people talking medium,” in a social way.
20. What about Flash and recent announcements of Google spidering/indexing Flash content. What to do?
I still think most publishers using Flash should embed Flash into pages and have plenty of text in the raw HTML code of those pages.
21. Purchasing old domains with keywords in domain? Bother or no bother? Where is the best place to find used/expiring domains?
NameJet, SnapNames, and TDNam are the best spots to buy expired names. As far as keyword rich domains, I am a big fan of them for the time being. And so are a couple of the search engines–Google and Microsoft Live Search.
22. Google’s “secret ranking algo”: How has it changed over the years? We know that links are key, onpage content with keywords, but how about “traffic, behavior, clickstreams”? Google is followed closely in the press for privacy issues. What thoughts do you have? Clearly Cuil.com didn’t win the masses just because of touting its differentiators: size of index and the “privacy” issue.
You are right. And on the privacy issue, if government was using data for their own purposes, or if competition’s business models were dying off because of Google, that’s not cool–but I don’t think it’s becoming a big deal. Uh, most people don’t care much.
23. Universal search? Very few are embracing opportunities to be listed multiple times on the home page of Google. I see this all the time in my internet marketing firm.
I think it depends on the vertical, but most people selling stuff can do well with sales videos and tutorials on sites like YouTube. Some of my videos ( like this one ) have more than 50,000 views, with most of the views coming from YouTube Search and Google Search. That is a lot of exposure for something that took me a half an hour to make.
24. How important is usability (navigation, interaction), accessibility (special needs, mobile browsers, etc.)?
For every guru there are a hundred or a thousand people new to the field. And the people who are most likely to buy information (from you, from affiliate ads, from contextual ads and from traditional ads) are people new to the field.
Being accessible and having good usability is important for turning many new visitors into repeat visitors.
25. Black Hat, white hat–where do you draw the line? Paid links? Scrapers, ranking tools?
I think stealing someone else’s content and/or intentionally causing harm to someone else’s website is pretty crappy. I am not against tracking rankings or renting a few links if they are needed to get the job done.
26. Can you tell us what SEOBOOK provides, what you are doing next and how readers can benefit? What are some other great resources on SEO? What other tools outside of Firefox SEO, Rankchecker, Backlink Analyzer do you have in store?
Some of my favorite SEO blogs are Johnon.com, SEOBlackHat.com, Shoemoney, Sugarrae, SEOmoz, Wolf Howl, Stuntdubl, SERoundtable, and Search Engine Land.
I don’t use Google Reader much, but I do use iGoogle.
I have a few more tool ideas (some will probably be bad while others are good), but it doesn’t make sense to mention them or launch them until we are well along the way of making them.
27. Do supplemental results still exist? How do know if you are in the “2nd index”?
Haven’t tested recently; it’s been a while. One way to find out is to look at how many pages are on your site. Then look at analytics, and find out how many pages are driving traffic. Example, if 150 of these 200 are good, and these other 1,400 pages do nothing, you have a problem to fix.
28th and final question: What is the most frequently asked question about SEO that you get on a daily basis? Or the most ignorant question about SEO?
Simple. It is this: “Is Black Hat SEO ethical?”
OK, cool exit point. We’ve captured a lot! (Wall’s dog starts to bark more now, perhaps somehow knowing where this conversation is going; the phones are ringing; and his wife is in a nearby room. I realize that after the good hour or so on this hot August day, it is time to bid adieu).
*P.S.*
On the question of “is black hat ethical” above, see this reference on Google’s Matt Cutts blog: CEO in Jail. (This is really bad news, and you should make up your own mind on which side of the fence you want to live.)
August could be crowned the month of search in California. Central to the search industry sits the popular, highly attended Search Engine Strategies conference with this year’s fashionable “Glow In The Dark”-themed Google Dance in San Jose, California.
It’s one of the largest conferences in the biz, and attendees can get a private, onsite visit with a big fun factor added: Walk freely (more or less, until you try to access any computer that is not monitored!) on Google campus, socialize with your friends, make new ones, drink and eat to your guts’ content–and ask any questions of the Google engineers. All this right on the Google campus in Moutain View, California. Pretty cool. See some SES campus pictures from Google itself. Lee Odden’s TopRankBlog has some cool SES 2008 pix too. Good to meet/greet these people.
I attended two days of the show (had to get back to my search marketing firm dealing with SEO business in Los Angeles).
I made some key textual summaries below, including a short video that I used Adobe Premier to create, with John Mayer’s “Waiting on the World to Change.”
Packed sessions were on the topics of local search, mobile applications/use, landing page optimization (Tim Ash), A/B testing, multivariate testing and search trends (blended search). Traditional SEO and paid search are still the backbone and platform for so many, but extending your knowledge into more niche-oriented tactics, both from a marketplace and technology perspective, is considered a highly valuable move.
Local search, for example, is not just about searching for (example) a dentist in your neighborhood, but more about “finding and discovering” in a new world. (A cool local application for the iPhone, which is receiving some notoriety and user acceptance, is the the “shake” application UrbanSpoon). Mobile search at this level is not about ranking top of Google with incoming links, but rather using new, cool-plus-useful mobile technology coupled with “time and location” parameters and GPS.
Say you are searching for pizza during the day. As a general guideline, the results will differ from what they would return at night. (Nighttime discoveries may reveal more alcohol-centric establishments, leaning toward a more mature, less family-oriented audience). Geographic movements will change results as well. Most of the top panelists consider mobile and local search to be THE real internet killer applications. These are still early-stage, and not with deep user penetration. Hence, there is a lot of opportunity.
Google’s Matt Cutts got asked about “Black Hat SEO,” and this private video captured some of his comments:
Search Engine Land captured more detail in its SES day-by-day play:
I recently began interviewing the illuminati of search engine marketing, SEO (search engine optimization) and social media marketing. In fact, you will see more detailed interviews over the coming weeks, leading up to the Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose, California (August 18).
My first “victim” was a very courteous, direct and knowledgeable SEO guru –family man Nathan Anderson. What follows is a recent interview talking about SEO myths, some controversial topics and what he’s up to with his highly respected SEO Club.
I met Nathan virtually last year through the Stomper Network (Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon, creators) and recently via social media marketer Allejandro Reyes @ successfool.tv.
Nathan also has a uStream.tv show: fun, informative and with always-useful tips. I was reminded how knowledgeable and confident Nathan is about this space. He uses a rare technique amongst SEOs today: Not only does he test and validate his own work for clients and members of his popular SEO Club, but also massive amounts of research and raw statistics (proprietary software/mining tools). This includes all total possible metrics for SEO–from every on-page to off-page factor (content, code, structure, links), and these are constantly updated, reviewed and tested.
J: Nathan, can you tell me a bit about yourself and how you got started in SEO?
N: I live in Colorado with my family and run my own business. For SEO, I really got started in 1997 building websites. With every project launched, I noticed that I was getting traffic but didn’t fully understand why. Being a detail-oriented and curious person, I wanted to find out more. I got started in earnest in 1999 and started formulating the approach for what would later become SEO Club, which I officially opened the doors for in 2003. I launched some other successful software products at that time that helped my users make millions of dollars online. I knew I was on a good track and that I had found my passion.
J: What is SEO Club, and how can users benefit? N: SEO Club is a members-only club, an exclusive network of businesspeople. I provide ebooks, a large library of training, and years of research and valuable data points, among other things. We have a conference call every other Thursday–and as necessary–to share SEO and online marketing-related discussions among the members. Some of the best minds in SEO are available, and this is information that you would not find in any forum. I also provide links to software and tools worth owning, and discounts to these via my network. All members also receive free access to all seminars that I speak at and the deep SEO-specific data analytics. In other words, an exclusive network of professionals [who] focus on driving their business to the top, using search. Additionally, as I create and push out new products, members get firsthand chance to test and validate in a team setting.
Statistical data is the heart of SEO Club, and all this data is free and available to members. It’s also a safe haven for members to invest into their businesses online. Like-minded individuals can hang out and talk, and whatever you say stays there: We have tough policies on this. Go with SEO Club if you want the hard-core data, not hype. We have competitive niche markets with tons of pages, but virtually no back-links–ranking to the top in Google. So many in the industry think that on-page factors don’t matter as much as links, but they do! Also, a new beta product is coming out later this year that will help you construct pages and websites to our own standard and search engine’s liking.
J: What are the SEO secrets in your mind? N: I don’t think anything is secret per se, but I do have some perhaps controversial SEO tips; is that OK? (J: Sure!). OK, keywords in URL outside of domain is not beneficial. Keywords early in title is good, and early in keyword-rich domain, for example. Keywords need to be sprinkled naturally throughout, and LSI (latent semantic indexing) and LSA (latent semantic analysis). Relevancy in copy is more important–keyword density is out. For example, a recent look at 15,000 sites in a competitive ranking study had no defined or patterned keyword density in it. You should also only use one (1) keyword per page, and use keyword-rich anchor text in the navigation. I recommend blogs; they are great for link baiting, easily updatable and pretty search engine-friendly. Lastly, H1 tags have come and gone, but it seems to change, i.e., not static. Search engines look for behavior and data freshness, so posting quality content with regular frequency is good. Also, testing pages is important and multi-variate testing can be such a way; it will not hurt search rankings.
J: What does the future of SEO hold? N: SEO as a standalone is destined to disappear. If you are going to survive as an SEO in the future, you will not–unless you become much more search engine commerce-centric. It’s not enough to know search engines, but you must expand yourself and include a complete wholistic view to online marketing. To think more about conversion theories, bottom-line strategies, retention, etc. will become necessary. The reputation of the site you’re working on, as related to others, is important.
It’s not about keyword density–in fact, we don’t talk about that anymore. And the future of an SEO needs to focus on website analytics and understand that not only do search engines also factor data freshness, user behavior and click streams, but so must you. It’s a mistake to not count detailed study of your own user’s clicks and necessary changes to sites and pages to accomodate their needs. Everything in the ecosystem benefits: users, search engines and the pocketbook!
J: Any other issues, tips or comments? N: Well, for paid links (highly controversial), do not use those. I have personally not used those since 2004, and I have much success from my own sites and members of SEO Club. Also, never use Flash-only sites. Search engines are still having issues reading and translating those into anything useful in the true sense of SEO.
Lastly, the best data about SEO is not found outside “closed doors.” SEO can be dangerous if not done right, and open forums are scary places to learn SEO. Private and members forums will provide the best information, and hopefully highest yield on all your efforts.
Nathan, thanks for a great interview! I can tell you that I am personally favoring on-page factors with good quality content. There is too much focus on “just get some links, and you’ll be ranked.” Create good quality content that is useful, unique and valuable–the (most important) links will follow.
Boy, the learning never stops, and trying to beat the search engines never does, either. I can see Nathan is a lot closer to it than me…
When outsourcing your SEO, know what questions to ask–before you sign.
I recently wrote up a seven-page SEO official hiring guide for the OPEN forum. (It has a lot of other useful info, too.) The pages talk about the challenges of hiring a search engine optimization firm, and what you should ask before committing. I recap the highlights below, and you can reference the Hiring an SEM firm site here.
Knowing where to turn once you’ve decided to outsource your search engine marketing campaign can be daunting. While it’s not necessary to be an expert, it’s important to know what to look for in a quality search engine marketing firm. Just as with any other vendor, knowledge base, cost efficiency and results are among the most important factors when selecting a company to trust with this piece of your business. And as the search engines are continuously updating their own methods of providing accurate search results, it’s even more important to find a search marketing agency that’s up-to-date on the latest strategies.
What does an ‘SEO’ do?
SEO consists of ongoing changes to websites with keyword rich, user-centric, quality content and links, both on your site and off. Therefore, this list provides questions you should ask any search firm you are considering and some of the answers to look for related to this model and other business issues.
Top list of questions to ask your potential SEO company: (see the answers here)
Do you guarantee top search engine rankings?
Will my website need to change?
What is your process for keyword research?
What is your pricing, and when can I expect (ranking) results?
How will I be able to gauge progress, and what level of communication should I expect?
Are you visible in the industry? Where can I find you?
Describe your firm’s general SEO experience and a few client references.
How long will our agreement (contract) last?
What should my SEO agreement include?
Who are your competitors, and why are you better for us?
How long do clients typically stay with you?
How does my team work with yours?
I have a CMS (Content Management System) . How does that affect the SEO work?
Will you make recommendations on my site’s copy/content?
What do you need from me during the engagement?
What are my options if I’m not satisfied with the results?
What things do you look for in a search-engine-friendly site?
What steps do you take in optimizing a website?
What is your overall approach to back linking?
How can I ensure that you will operate ethically?
These questions should cover you pretty well. Read the angles/answers and understand them too; there are many moving parts here.
Make sure the firm you choose understands your business, and is well versed in the online space–not just the technical or programming parts. Also, remember that there are some really creative salespeople out there, genuine enough but not always well trained in the online or, especially, the SEO space. We buy on emotion, and we buy from people we like. Make sure that it’s more than just the salesperson you like!
Training is an important aspect, and it includes you. You should consider taking an SEO class through Sempo Institute or MarketMotive. (I took a class at BruceClay.com–he’s great, too). Make some time to participate in the process and you’ll have a partnership for success.
Where to start? Of course, if you’d like to see how you stand from a technical/marketplace standpoint, there are complimentary website reviews that have no commitment other than revealing potentially problematic issues with your site and space.
Ask any person in Google Rankings territory, and you’ll find questions including:
“Why did my site drop in rankings?”
“How can I make my site more search (engine) friendly?”
“What are the best ways to gain top rankings and hopefully more traffic?”
and of course, this one:
“What are the real secrets to Google search results domination?”
The questions about rankings are always a hot topic. Read on to learn more.
In my mind, while there’s a lot of hype on the internet, good copy-writing techniques with relevant, useful text that draws you in are very important for both users and engines.
But in the end, there are a few basics that always seem to work for top Google exposure. This was recently discussed by top Google spam cop Matt Cutts.
In other words, there really are no secrets.
In his recent USA Today interview, Cutts talks about five great ways to create visibility via content, links and trust–built over time.
1. Keywords/phrases on your pages
Make sure to include content on your page (text) that references the keywords you’re targeting. In other words, if you’re a dentist in Los Angeles, ensure that those keywords are on your page. Unbelievable as it may seem, many sites don’t have their related keyword listed on the website’s pages. Once you include them, stick to one to three phrases on the page–and include them early and often, using synonyms to help.
2. Tag fillings
While we’re on the topic of a dentist (pun intended), each html page is constructed via tags. Top tags to remember are the title, description and H1-H2 tags. The description tag is a great oppotunity to showcase or upsell your product or service. It’s the text that shows up in the search results and, if including keywords there, it will be boldfaced/highlighted automatically. Make it informational, not pitchy. Place keywords in the title and H1 tags to start, but don’t overdo it–no keyword stuffing (spam).
3. Links Make sure to get sites to link back to you. If you provide quality content that educates and entertains, it will happen automatically. Links are strong factors for ranking in Google. Some 100 factors (”signals”) are analyzed to determine your site’s rankings, and they can shift–so keep that link program running. Look for quality, not quantity. Number of links and quality (trust) of those links are key.
4. Blogs
“Get a blog and post often,” Cutts says. You can read more on blogs elsewhere in my blog, and I will be posting a tutorial on how to set up a Wordpress blog soon. You can also use the date and time factors for search to see how frequently your competition is adding content. (every 24 hours, every week or every month)
5. Get free search engine tools
Sign up for Google Webmaster Tools, xml-sitemaps.com, xenu.com (link sleuth) and Google Local Business Center (you could end up seeing your listings at the top of the page, next to a local map).
One final tip on content. If you are not a savvy writer but can type (smile), you can get ideas by looking at article directories such as ezinearticles.com and rewrite existing content, adding your own spin. (Make sure to reference the original author, if you are not completely making it your own). Use blogsearch.google.com and technorati.com to study who is writing in your niche and what they are writing about. Review also the pay-per-click ads and your competitors. Study their landing pages, structure and messaging. Don’t copy, but get more creative.
I mean, ultimately, if no rankings exist (I’m talking about the first page of search engines) for keywords that are searched for (try Google Suggest), you are not using natural, organic results to drive traffic, or you have just started.
You may be employing other strategies for driving traffic, which is good–you should have a blended approach–but you *must* track everything you do, and Google Analytics is most often the starter analytics package of choice. In fact, since it’s easy on your wallet (free), many opt to use this system. It is used on websites from static to dynamic. There are even free Wordpress Analytics Plugins, easy to set up. Check out Joost De Valk and his wordpress Google analytics plugin (he’s a great SEO tool builder in the Netherlands; contact him if you are reading from Europe).
Rankings are important. But after ranking and traffic comes the critical (and often underused or misdiagnosed) web analytics. What questions should you ask? What’s important?
Recently, at a publishers convention, I discussed SEO, search marketing trends and tracking (wpa-online.org), and it was apparent that many knew the basics of SEO and had analytics running on their sites, but did not necessarily know what were important metrics to track.
Learn more about page views, user behavior tracking, average time on site, importance of understanding bounce rates, unique visitors, referrer traffic and optimizing landing pages here.
Search Engine Optimization using proper KPI (key performance indicators) analytics is a must-do, don’t-miss situation.
Many SEO firms are now ROI-based (not just rankings anymore), like my new friend and SEO expert Gab Goldberg. I recommend you check him out.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free web-analytics package that offers compelling features and benefits such as keyword comparison, custom dashboards and AdWords integration for everyone from senior executives and advertising and marketing professionals to site owners and content developers.
A set of additional, useful videos on (Google) analytics.
Also, how about those privacy concerns–where Google might use your data (for/against) in some fashion? Read the industry and benchmarking trends report that recently came out for more on that.
So I recommend you look at these videos in the following order:
Overview Analytics video 1: “A Small Business Approach to Web Analytics: John Marshall” (Ex-ClickTracks);
Google Analytics Video 2: “Google Analytics Interface Tutorial”;
Google Analytics Video 3: “Optimizing Customer Experiences”; and
Google Analytics Video 4: “Bounce Rate: The Simply Powerful Metric” (this guy is a guru in this industry).
Since we know that search engines love text (it’s what they can “understand”) and users love quality content, how can you write the most relevant, traffic-capturing content to meet the requirements of both?
The answer lies in focusing on the user first, not the other way around.
How do you write quality content?
You need to start by understanding the learning process of humans, what drives us and what makes us take action on something we see or hear.
The best way is to get to the basics. Do you know how we learn and what our behavioral preferences are? If not, here’s a view:
Why (35 percent of people)
What (22 percent of people)
How (18 percent of people)
So what (25 percent of people)
Knowing the above can provide more clarity in your research. When you write, think about the above. More information can be found via Bernice McCarthy’s innovative 4-mat system. It’s a helpful guide, along with an expanded “cycle of learning,” with its sequential pie charts of learning.
You can see how I answered the why (search engines, users); what (traffic capture); how (links out, pie chart reference) in this post. The last category may also have been captured (what if…), but that reader might have left before reading the line.
Make the right and left brain work together. Make it educational, but also entertaining.
As I came to–from what to me seems like the planet’s worst tooth surgery (not kidding)–I found this horrific story on American Express and its “SEO is a waste” comment. You can see the entire piece here (Actual pdf here; see page 29).
In a brief, American Express says, “Don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists. Search engines are very quick to penalize sites that try to trick their filtering techniques, and once your site has been put on Google’s blacklist, it will take forever to get off.”
Clearly, the writers of this document do not understand the explicit and implicit work, value and results of a white-hat search engine optimization campaign done right. Was this a way to generate link bait for themselves, or just a naive entry onto the net, thinking we in the profession would not notice? Or just plain ol’ quality assurance issues of editorial content?
Who is running search engine marketing over there? It is most likely a qualified group, but it must not have coordinated on these marketing materials–perhaps an honest mistake? The document made it online though, which is a shame.
While the discussion of “SEO professionals” versus “Google spam team” has been an ongoing mention in the press, forums and search engine conferences, the *real truth* is that Google wants a relevant, quality web, providing the results for an overall top user experience. If professional SEO assistance can help attain this goal without spamming the search engines, SEO-ers have done their job.
SEO today is more about traffic and action tracking than pure ranking–something that American Express fails to discuss in this context. Good SEO firms can educate audiences, help steer clear of the landmines and provide more detail than clients ever knew about their site(s). Then, together, they can provide sound strategies and roadmaps for proper buildout of pages and designs.
None of us in this business is apologetic about providing great services and education to help webmasters create the best user experience and traffic generation for themselves.
This document (also from AMEX) is more on target, perhaps written by a SEM Team? You should read it: some valuable tips to consider there.
Over the years, the ALT attribute (the popular term is “tag,” which is technically incorrect, but I use it in the headline, since most folks are familiar with that term) and its use have not been well understood for search engine optimization. It has been used–still is– as a spammy way to try to manipulate resultsfor search engines.
Learn how to optimize for users and search engines in this short post and discover the ALT attribute techniques that work. A total of 508 accessibility issues are also included briefly in the video snippet.
The basic syntax looks like this: <img src=”my-image.jpg” alt=”description of my image”>. Where spam would enter the scene is via keyword stuffing (many words crammed into the ALT attribute) in hopes of getting ranked by those keywords inserted.
This does not work.
Do it correctly and optimize for Google’s image search by providing a good filename and a short, related description. If you are looking to brand yourself, you may even put a transparent or overlay text right on the image, so when it shows up, users have a reference of its origin. You see this often on videos these days (i.e.: youtube), where a reference to the website sits on the bottom of the screen during play–as a reminder of where it came from.
Enjoy this latest video about ALT / image attributes from the top Google Search Spam Guru: Matt Cutts.
Recently, a conference was held in Las Vegas, the Publishers Conference (pubcon.com). Lots of discussion around search marketing and opportunities to generate traffic and business online: Link building, universal search, local search, social search, personalized search, web 2.0, social media optimization, content strategies and much, much more.
One of the top videos that came out of the conference that’s available now is the Matt Cutts interview for top SEO advice. You will also find more tips on Wordpress and its recent release.
Lastly, some tips on YouTube and Google Video optimization, which is important for possible massive exposure.
In the field of search marketing, specifically search engine optimization, watching and tracking your website rankings, performing detailed and ongoing keyword research and managing link programs and competitive analysis are vital to your business and building search engine rankings.
While much of this can be done manually, you simply don’t have the time.
Perhaps you can keep up for a while on one domain, but if you are smart – you have applied a multiple domain strategy, supporting your niche market place with a domain ring and rich branding via URLs in PPC campaigns. Under this model, you’ll be more strapped than ever – but you need to continue building.
What do you do now?
Start by using a basic, but powerful SEO toolset that will do the job for you. Here are some tools that I use, and consider them indispensable search tools:
WP4 - a tool developed by the Webtrends folks – to help completely automate the tracking of your search engine rankings and related keywords. Used by many search engine marketers, there’s a free download, (aff) and you can selected between the standard edition and pro edition. Search engines don’t like abuse from tools like these, so make sure you run it responsibly, and use the “search engine friendly” settings. It’s nice to wake up in the morning – to detailed rankings reports with all your competitors listed next to you.
Keyword Research Super tool – Wordtracker. There is a free version you can start with now, and you can sign up for their paid version also. You must select the right keywords, or all your efforts will go wasted. Extensive data mining from ISPs and meta crawlers provide massive amounts of keywords for your research. This is the easy and professional way to remove all the guessing, and super-sizes the old overture tool (which hasn’t been updated in a while, and dying slowly, but used by many).
For link analysis and competitive research, you will do well with the Optilink system from Leslie Rhode, the SEO Overlord and stellar search programmer. As you probably know, link popularity (how many links are pointing to you) and link reputation (what those links say about you in the anchor text) are key to moving up in search results. Add also a strong relevancy factor, and you got a winning formula for success. (I recently tripled my traffic in less than a week with a recent site I’m testing – just from using this tool and building the right links the first time).
Keyword density has been discussed too many times in forums and search engine blogs about being a key factor to rankings. While having content on a page with the right keyword distribution is important, I still use this free tool to make sure I’m capturing the right keywords. I also look at keyword proximity and prominence, both from the copy and supporting tools like this. The keyword cloud concept can be quite useful.
I have compiled a list of additional tools that you may use – some free and paid – on this comprehensive SEO tools list page.
Get more free information and download software, tools and e-books from Jon’s Search Marketing Resource Center on topics like how to drive tons of traffic, convert visitors from landing pages and make lots of money online.
ULTIMATE Guide to Search Engine Optimization
