About Beth Browning

Beth has over twenty years of business experience which include a range of specialties including writing, web design,user experience, and Internet marketing. She has been focused on optimizing websites for customer experience and increasing conversion for more than a decade. Beth recently joined the Search Engine Academy team as a Master Level instructor and teaches SEO at the Pennsylvania Search Engine Academy. She is located in the Greater Philadelphia Area. Join her on Google+

The Wonderful World of Google Plus and Social Media

May 24, 2013 By 2 Comments

After a wonderful vacation, it’s back to reality and I’m finally getting caught up on blog posts.  Before I left, I had the most amazing experience on Google+.  I was somewhat of a late adopter when it comes to social media marketing and social networking.  My previous position in Corporate America didn’t necessitate learning how to use Facebook or Twitter for business (although it should have) and Google+ wasn’t even on my radar.

I jumped in feet first about six months ago and boy am I glad I did.  I’ve met people and made connections that I would have never dreamed of in a traditional networking model.  A connection I made on Twitter, led me to a Google+ Community called Open Social Media Initiative, #opensm.  Sherry Nouraini has a vision, and it’s to share information about social media in an open format and to provide open, accessible, and free education to help others succeed.

On Friday’s Sherry hosts a Hangout On Air for the #opensm community and anyone else who wants to join in; it’s a great way to stay on top of what’s happening in the word of social media and to meet great people from all over the world.  The topics vary from week to week, and often include an interview or presentation from a subject matter expert on topics such as Google Plus.  I had the awesome opportunity to be a guest presenter and we offered a three part workshop series on SEO: How Search Engines Find Your Content, How to Create Content Search Engines can Find, and The Dance Between Search and Social.

A few Friday’s ago she switched it up, and instead of a presentation, Sherry held open office hours and invited people from the business community to share their social media challenges and get input and advice from the panel.  We had a very interesting discussion about how to apply social media in the aerospace metal and specialty steel distribution industry.

It boggles my mind to think that I was sitting in my living room sharing SEO tips with people in Illinois, California, and Washington.  We had coverage from both coasts and the Midwest.

Shortly after the Hangout, I checked my email for the Pennsylvania Search Engine Academy and was excited when I saw a new message.  It was “delivered with high importance” which always makes me smile because it means that it’s an inquiry about an upcoming search engine marketing workshop or onsite training.

The message wasn’t about a workshop but may be even better in the long run.

“We are watching you (now) on the opensm hangout. We would really like to interview you, on the topic of SEO, for Social Web Cafe Interviews (http://www.socialwebcafe.tv). Deborah has mentioned that she would like to discuss the crossover between SEO and social media and give you a platform to advertise yourself and services.”

Thirty minutes later a connection was made and my interview was scheduled. I’ve since had the pre-production interview and learned some new tricks to making my videos more effective.  Next up the actual interview.

I can’t wait to write the next installment.

Until next time.

Cheers!

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Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , ,

Google Authorship – 7 Benefits Beyond SEO

April 26, 2013 By 11 Comments

Google trends on Google Authorship from 2011 to 2013

The interest in Google Authorship is rising almost as fast as the increase of usage of mobile devices to browse websites and search the internet.  It got off to a slow start, but the adoption rate among search engine optimization and social media marketing professionals is quickly picking up steam.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that when I first heard about Google Authorship it went in one ear and out of the other.  I couldn’t imagine setting up yet another profile on yet another social network just so my picture would show up on a search results page.

Thank goodness my colleague and fellow Search Engine Academy instructor Nancy Wigal kept encouraging and educating me about the importance of  Google Authorship and Google Plus and how they can help you achieve your SEO goals.  If it hadn’t been for her I may have waited to verify my authorship or even worse, I may not have done it at all {GASP!}

In a very short amount of time I’ve gone from being ambivalent about it to borderline fanatical.  I recently came across a good Quick Start Guide on Search Engine Watch, the second sentence of the article by Chuck Price was “If you aren’t on Google+, you’re on the path to irrelevance.”  It might have been that sentence that tipped the scale from mere supporter to full-fledged advocate.

Simply put, Google Authorship is going through a process which includes setting up a profile on Google+ to verify your identity as an author.  Or in other words they know that a real human wrote and published the content.

When I first heard about it, I thought, “Ok, so after I set up a Google + profile and now my picture might show up on a search result page, so what.”  How is that going to help me with SEO?

Don’t get me wrong, I thought it would be kind of cool to have my picture associated with a piece of content but other than that I didn’t really ‘get’ it.  And boy oh boy – did I totally miss the importance of Google+and why it should be part of your web presence and search engine optimization strategy.

The bottom line is that  If you have a Google+ profile you’ll be more visible in search results than if you don’t have one.  This started to happen as far back as 2009 (ancient history in internet time) when Google introduced Social Search, which was designed to help people quickly find publicly available web content from your social contacts. In January of 2012, they introduced Search, plus Your World, which incorporates personal results, profiles, people, and pages in search. In other words if you search on a term that someone in one of your circles has written about, their content will be far more likely to show up in your search results.

As with anything else related to SEO, there are additional variables that will be taken into account before a piece of content is considered relevant enough to display in your results, but who you are connected to and whether or not they’ve verified authorship is certainly one of them.

There are benefits beyond SEO as well, and if you’re an author of content I think you’ll welcome them.

Benefits of Google Authorship:

  1. Higher click through rates - statistically people click through at a higher rate on links with rich snippets
  2. Establish authority – a result with a headshot separates you from the back and reinforces that it’s a credible piece of content
  3. Keep your identity – a picture’s worth a thousand words – if you have a common name like ‘Beth Browning,’ you’ll be able to put the name with a face
  4. Beat plagiarism - he original author gets credit – wave goodbye to copy artists and article spinners
  5. Build Trust - it’s all about relationships and people and this is one more way to build trust in an on-line world
  6. Verify guest posts and comments – your profile follows along as you comment on blogs and publish posts on other blogs
  7. Elevate the value and role of writers – as businesses start to recognize the benefits, good writers won’t have to defend why they charge $100 or more for a blog post

If you’re contributing content and you haven’t verified your Google+ Authorship, don’t wait any longer – get started here now.

Join me here on Google+ for regular tips on SEO and more – I’m still learning, so let’s have some fun while we learn together – be sure to mention you read this post.

What are your thoughts about Google Authorship?

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, SEO Tagged With: , , , , ,

Press Releases, Duplicate Content, & SEO

April 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In my last post, Beyond the Optimized Press Release – What is the Media Looking for?, I described the key components of a News Room and shared some tips for making sure your website is media friendly. At the Search Engine Academy, we teach about the value of writing optimized press releases as part of a search engine optimization strategy.

One of the components that editors like to see on a website is a consolidated library of press releases, which is great except for the fact that it causes a duplicate content issue.  The original version of the press release was published through whatever service you use and if you post the exact same content on your website you are creating duplicate content and this could cause problems down the road because your site could end up being viewed as a duplicate content offender.

On a mission to find an answer that would enable my client to set up the best news room possible without creating a duplicate content issue, I turned to Google and my colleagues to find the best approach. I got pretty excited when I read about an option to use a syndication source tag as a way to cite the original content, but was deflated pretty quickly when I learned that it had been depreciated  and isn’t considered to be the best approach.

After exploring many options including:

Option 1: Create unique versions of the press release for each distribution channel: a wire version, website version, and a social media version.  Fresh content and different links.

Pros:

  • No duplicate content issue
  • Additional content that can help with SEO

Cons:

  • Resource intensive and time consuming to create multiple versions
  • It may be difficult to make them appreciably different depending on the scope of the announcement
Option 2: Update the robots.txt file to block the content in the news room from being indexed.

Pros:

  • No duplicate content issue
  • No need to invest in creating additional content

Cons:

  • Other content such as white papers and case studies that are stored in the same location as the press releases would not be indexed and they will lose the SEO value of this content.
Option 3:  Leave the copies of the press releases on their site add links to the original version of the news release.

Pros:

  • Easy to make minor changes to the exisiting press releases
  • No need to invest in creating additional content
  • The SEO value with other content in the newsroom remains in tact

Cons:

  • There is no real SEO benefit from it

By nature, presses releases will be syndicated, Google “knows” there will be copies of it all over the place, and it’s very common practice for companies to (including very large and savvy companies) to publish a copy of the release on their own domain.

If you’re concerned about duplicate content, and it’s not important to you to have a copy of the press release on your website, the cleanest approach is to publish the press release using a service such as PRWeb and include a link back to your website.   If you want to publish the press release on your site, you can evaluate the options here and make your decision based on how conservative you want to be.

In my client’s case (short term), we decided to go with option 3 in addition to writing a blog post in addition to the press release to expose the information to a different audience and get the SEO benefit.

What are your thoughts on the subject of press releases and duplicate content?

Until next time,

Cheers!

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Duplicate Content, PR Web, Press Releases Tagged With: , , ,

Beyond the Optimized Press Release – What is the Media Looking for?

April 9, 2013 By 1 Comment

One of my clients recently engaged a PR firm to assist them with content distribution and to build relationships with media so that we can get more exposure for their great products and services.  As a part of their search engine optimization strategy, I’ve been writing optimized press releases, case studies, and blog posts for them for about six months. We’ve been seeing great traction and improved lead generation from the blog posts and case studies.  Given the success, the time was right to expand the reach by including a PR firm who has solid contacts and relationships with the media.

In spite of what some naysayers think, an optimized press release is still a valuable search engine optimization tool.

The new relationship is proving to be a great experience for all of us.  I’m learning how to do an even better job when it comes to writing press releases from the gals at the PR agency and I’m passing along valuable SEO tips to my client and the agency.

One of the very interesting things that I learned is that it’s important to have a News Room on your website if you want to get the most traction possible from your press releases.  When someone from the media is determining whether or not to pick up and promote a press release they often go to the website to evaluate the credibility of the source as well as the newsworthiness of the announcement.

The key components a News Room are:

  • Company background – a 10 sentence overview that describes how a company was formed and what they offer.  It’s important to avoid marketing lingo, exaggerated adjectives, and industry jargon.
  • Press Releases – html or .pdf versions of company press release, organized by product offering if appropriate (this introduces a duplicate content conundrum which I’ll discuss in my next post).
  • Press Mentions – post links to any news your company has been mentioned in.
  • Product Resources – a library of product literature such as, whitepapers, case studies, and data sheets – this is a great opportunity to produce some keyword rich and very valuable content for your visitors.  Also include product screen shots and videos (optimized for SEO) in your library.
  • Corporate management – team bios with downloadable head shots in high and low resolution formats.
  • FAQ’s – the top 8 – 10 questions the press would ask about the product.  Avoid marketing lingo, be honest, and be clear about how you describe your product.
  • PR Contacts – who should the media call if they want additional information.

In a nutshell, it’s important to make your press room as easy to find and use as possible.  Don’t make editors jump through hoops to find the information they’re looking for.

Although it’s great to have the information in one tidy location for the media, it’s important to remember that if you’re posting exact copies of your press releases on your website, it’s likely that you’re causing a duplicate content headache.  In my next post, I’ll review options and solutions that will enable you to get the word out without having adverse affects.

Cheers!
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Filed Under: Content Marketing, PR Web, Press Releases Tagged With: , , , ,

Does Klout equal Clout? Do Social Signals Impact SEO?

April 1, 2013 By 1 Comment

What is Klout and is it important?  Do Social Signals Impact SEO?

If you’ve never heard of Klout, you’re not alone. Klout is one of a handful of score cards that are intended to measure the level of influence an individual has in the online world particularly through their social media networks.  The others that I’m familiar with are Kred, TrustCloud, and Tweetlevel.  Klout, Kred, and TrustCloud take multiple social networks into consideration when calculating their scores and Tweetlevel provides a score that is specific to Twitter.

The topic of a social score card and whether or not it has any validity can spark a heated debate rather quickly.  It seems that people are firmly on one side of the fence or the other (if they’ve even heard about it).  For those who have heard of it there are many questions, including whether or not social signals play a role in search engine optimization and have an impact on relevancy rankings.

Does Klout or any of the other scorecard accurately measure your social media impact and does having a high score improve your chances of showing up in Google or Bing’s search results?  That’s the sixty-four-thousand dollar question. There’s a lot of buzz about social signals and whether or not they have an affect on SEO and there are as many naysayers as believers, especially as it relates to the concept of a social scorecard.

I completely understand the naysayer’s point of view regarding the social scoring systems that exist today.  The execution is flawed for a few reasons:

  • Much of the scoring has to do with activity without regard to the type of activity – if people in your social networks “like” and “share” your content and posts it boosts your score. I could be posting pictures of cats that people love, say I’m an expert in SEO, and have a high Klout score.  Just because I know how to post pictures that people love to share doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing when it comes to search engine optimization.
  • There’s a lack of participation and awareness about the scores, which minimizes the ability to compare one person’s score or “level of influence” to someone else.  Interestingly everyone already has a score whether they know it or not.  I just recently signed up for Kred and whala I had already been scored and it didn’t change even after I connected my social networks.
  • Each of the tools has an endorsement system, they are all different and again there is limited to no correlation between what someone is endorsed for, the activity within their networks, and what they’ve been endorsed for.

I think the concept is brilliant even if the execution is flawed and I’ve seen indicators that lead me to believe that Klout for one is trying to bridge the gap between expertise and activity.

"Ask me questions on Klout"The last time I checked my Klout score, I had a message that gave me an option to post an update to my personal Facebook page.  The update was an invitation for people to ask me questions on the areas of interest/expertise that I have associated with my account.

I decided to play along and post the question on Facebook and hope to get some questions about search engine marketing or social media strategy.  I’m not quite sure how or if it’s going to work because only 14 of my friends are on Klout and given the fact that Facebook only shows your updates to somewhere between 12% and 16% of your friends it seems unlikely that I’ll get any questions.  But it does seem to be a step in the right direction.

In my opinion, there is a need for some sort of scoring system.  With the rate at which content is being created and the fact that anyone can create a website there needs to be some way for people (and search engines) to determine whether or not someone knows what they are talking or writing about.  Whether or not that comes in the form of a scorecard such as Klout remains to be seen.

There is some evidence that there is some correlation between having a strong social signal and search rankings.  In other words, if people are highly engaged with your content in the various social networks (meaning they are liking and sharing it), you may have a better chance of showing up in natural search results than someone who doesn’t have a strong social signal.  And there is no doubt that things like Google authorship can help when it comes to achieving your SEO Goals.

The jury is still out as to whether or not your Klout, Kred, or TrustCloud scores are important or valid, but I for one am not going to ignore them completely.  Will I tweet my scores? Absolutely not.  But I do believe that there will come a day that such a thing as an influence score exists and just in case it’s one of the tools I’ve mentioned I figure it doesn’t hurt to play along.

What’s your point of view on social scorecards and why?

Until next time.

Cheers!

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Google AdWords: Profit from Pay Per Click – Part 5 (Keyword Buckets Test)

March 29, 2013 By 1 Comment

Now that we’ve completed some initial research, it’s finally time to set up our first Google AdWords campaign.  Keep in mind that running a keywords bucket test is one more step toward establishing our overall campaign strategy.  You’ve done your keyword research and now it’s time to to set up a test ad group and then evaluate the results after you run it.

Go ahead and click the “create campaign” button go to the first page of the campaign management:

AdWords Campaign set up steps:

  1. Select “Search Network Only” from the drop down box.
  2. Name the campaign using the following format: Search | Geographic Indicator |Keyword.  For Caribbean vacation it would be: Search | US | caribbean vacation.
  3. Select devices – if you’re using the legacy version of AdWords – .  If you’re using the enhanced version your ads will automatically display on all devices. (eventually everyone will be migrated to the enhanced version)
  4. Select the bid type – since we’re new to this, we’re going to stick with the default option which is to let AdWords maximize the bid for us.
  5. Set your daily budget – start small, you can always increase it later.
  6. Select Ad extensions (enhanced version) – you can display your location, extended site links, phone number, and/or associate the Ad with your Google+ page.
  7. Save and Continue to the create ad group page.

Create bucket test ad group:

  1. Name the ad group with the main keyword.
  2. Create a headline, two description lines, and two URL lines – make sure your headline and description lines are compelling and include a call to action and that the landing page (URL) matches up with your
  3. Enter the keywords from the file that you downloaded
  4. Set your default bid (the maximum you’re willing to pay for a click) – this amount shouldn’t be more than one-tenth of your daily budget so you can get at least 10 clicks per day per campaign.  If your daily budget is set for $50, your default bid should be $5.  You can adjust this later as you learn what works
  5. Pause the campaign – we have a few more things to do.
  6. Create two to three more ads using the same descriptions and URLs, but different headlines.  Make sure that the headlines are different enough to appeal to distinctly different audiences and/or invoke different emotions, e.g. cheap vs bargain, great value vs big discount. You’ll use metrics to determine which is the most profitable.

Now you’ll want to set up a campaign for each keyword from the bucket list you created.  Create the ads and be sure to test them to make sure they resolve to the right landing page. The landing page is very important and absolutely must be highly related to your ad, if it isn’t, the quality score for your Ad will be low.  If it gets too low, Google won’t even display it.

It’s time to start the bucket test. Navigate to the All Online Campaigns page and enable the campaigns.  Once it’s been running for 7 days, you can begin evaluating the results to see what direction you want to take your PPC (pay per click) campaigns.

 Tips for Evaluating the Test Results

  •  Be sure to look at monthly searches and the average CPC so you can determine whether or not you have enough money in your budget
  • Take conversion rate into consideration and calculate how many clicks you will have to pay for before it converts to a sale.  On average you might expect a 1% conversion rate or in other words, you need 100 visitors to gain a sale.  It will take at least 500 visitors before you can draw any conclusions about whether or not the ad will convert profitably.  So let’s say the cost per click is $1, you would need to be willing and able to spend $500 (for each test).
  • Look at more than just traffic and clicks.  If an one ad gets more traffic than another, but no sales it’s not the winner.

That may have seemed like a lot of work, and you may be asking why not just jump in with both feet and see what happens.  That is certainly one approach and it can work. However, if you put the time in up front to conduct thorough keyword research and set up a strategic test you can minimize your overall spend because you will know what works and what doesn’t rather than just guessing at it.

This process can and should be used on an ongoing basis to do A/B tests so you can continuously fine tune and improve your results.

That’s it for the basics of setting up a keyword bucket test in AdWords.  Next up we’ll review tips for setting up and managing your account.

What’s your favorite way to use AdWords to test?

Until next time,

Cheers!

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Adwords, Pay Per Click Tagged With: , ,

Google AdWords: Profit from Pay Per Click – Part 4 (Keyword Buckets Test)

March 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

PPC can be an important part of an overall search engine marketing plan, it’s time to get back to the topic of AdWords. I hope you enjoyed the brief break and a couple of different topics, I know I did.  But it’s time to get back to the task I started a few weeks ago and continue our tour through Google AdWords.

It’s been a while so lets do a quick review of the previous posts:

In part one we talked about some of the reasons it makes sense for businesses to implement a Pay Per Click program.  In addition to the fact that it may just be profitable, there are added benefits of instant gratification, increased brand awareness, and it can be a good testing ground for keywords.  Part two provided an overview of setting up a Google AdWords account; the big take away here is that it’s important to do the research before you jump into setting up your first campaign.  Market Discovery was the focus of part three.  The most important question to ask yourself while you’re evaluating keywords during this part of the process is, Would a person searching on this term be a potential customer?”  and make a “yes” or potential keyword list and a “no” or negative keyword list.

Ok, now that we’re caught up, lets move onto the notion of establishing keyword buckets.  Think of each bucket as a market segment and you want to fill it with closely related keywords.  Up until now, you’ve been doing research with the match type set to broad, the time has come to toggle it to[exact] (if you are creating a test for a local search leave the match type as broad since other wise you won’t be able to generate enough traffic to test adequately).

In addition to scanning the list for good keywords you’ll want to also take note of the local search trends to get an idea about the seasonality of a term.  It’s a good idea to be aware of seasonality so you can budget accordingly.  You’re going to pay more for search phrases related to Caribbean vacations in January than you are in August.  Approximate CPC (cost per click) is a rough average of how much it will cost you each time someone clicks on an ad.  Keep in mind that the more attractive your ads and landing pages, the better your campaign will perform, and you’ll spend less than competitors who are less appealing.

"adwords interface exact match keyword results"

The two phrases that jump out at me are “cheap Caribbean vacations” and “Caribbean vacation deals,”  both have decent search volume, the CPC won’t break the bank, and that’s what we sell!

Now it’s time to fill the buckets! Go back to the keyword tool, enter both search phrases into the search box and click on Search (be sure you keep the match phrase set to exact).

Now you have an expanded list of terms and whala, the third phrase” cheap Caribbean vacations all inclusive” wasn’t part of the first list. Make your way through the list and put a check mark next to the phrases that are desirable and then download them into excel.  It’s a good idea to review the list from AdWords one more time in the excel format and be sure to eliminate any words you don’t want to include.

Guess what?  We’re finally ready to create the bucket test campaign and we can use it to do some real testing before we spend a lot of money.

In the next post we’ll talk about the specifics of setting up the bucket test campaign in the AdWords tool.

Until then,

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Adwords, Pay Per Click Tagged With: , , , ,

Mobile SEO in a World that is “Always on the Go”

March 22, 2013 By 1 Comment

"Google on Smart Phone - Mobile SEO"Does your business need a mobile SEO strategy? You might be surprised how many businesses overlook this critical component of their overall search engine marketing strategy.  Mobile search is on the rise and it impacts both natural search and PPC.

The percentage of people who use mobile devices to search and shop online varies widely from one industry to another. The first thing you need to do before you write off the need to implement a mobile search engine optimization strategy is take a look at your analytics. Find out what percentage of your traffic is coming from a mobile device, which devices, and what they are doing on the site.  If you don’t have the information available, then the first thing you need to do is implement a tool like Google Analytics and start keeping track.

If you own or operate a local business like a restaurant, movie theater, gas station or store chances are good that people are searching for the products or services you sell on either their smart phone or tablet.  In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that there’s a high probability that they started their research on their laptop or desktop and incorporated the use of a mobile device when they got closer to the decision to buy.

Mobile search is driving in-store traffic:

  • 40% of mobile searches are local[1]

After finding a business on a smart phone:

  • 61% of people call the business[1]
  • 59% visit the location [1]

Mobile Search is Different

In addition to understanding the nuances of local and generic SEO strategies, marketers also need to know the requirements for mobile search.

There are a few facts about mobile devices that need to be taken into consideration from a usability standpoint:

  • Mobile devices have small screens
  • Data access is often-times slower than home or office internet service
  • Searches are generally done in real time and the searcher won’t want to scroll for important information

There are a couple of ways you can approach having a mobile friendly website.  It might be tempting to just miniaturize your site so that it scales down to fit on a mobile screen, but that’s not the best approach because mobile search needs are different from desktop requirements. On a desktop solution, it’s great to provide as much information about a product or service as possible, but a mobile interface should contain “just the facts.” You also want to minimize (if not remove completely) the use of video and heavy graphics.  Forget about flash, not only is it bad from an SEO standpoint, the objects won’t render on an iPad or iPhone.

Given the fact that the information and presentation for a mobile device is a scaled down version of a full website, it’s best to create a mobile website or App.  In addition to having a mobile site, provide access to your full site in case the visitor wants to go there.

Mobile SEO Tips:

  • Make it easy for searchers to find phone numbers, directions, hours of business, and other key information.
  • Keep the mobile website on your own domain.
  • Use “click to call”
  • Make sure it’s fast – reduce the size of rich content
  • Direct the search engines mobile crawlers and the users to the mobile site
  • Optimize your meta descriptions for mobile by using shorter queries

Capture new leads and drive more traffic to your business by adding a strategy for mobile to your search engine optimization strategy.

What’s your favorite mobile SEO strategy?

Until next time, Cheers!

 

[1] Google Performics & ROIResearch 2011 Mobile Insights Study (March 2011)

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Filed Under: Local Search, Mobile Marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Why Buy the Cow When There’s Free Milk? Why Pay For SEO Training?

February 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

"Toy Cow Standing on a Glass of Milk"There’s no denying that there are a ton of really great resources with free information about search engine optimization, social media marketing, content marketing, and PPC as well as any other topic you can think of that is directly or indirectly related to one of these topics.  It’s also interesting to note that the majority of these resources also offer a variety of paid training options and workshops.

So why would anyone in their right mind actually buy the cow or in other words, pay for training when they can get it online and for free?

A good and very fair question.  In some ways it’s not unlike when we get an ache or pain and instead of calling to make an appointment with a doctor we take a few other approaches first.

  • Call a friend to see if they have any good advice or remedies (9 times out of 10 the friend isn’t a medical professional)
  • Wait it out – if we ignore it long enough it’ll go away and we can remain blissfully ignorant of the cause
  • Google the symptoms and self diagnose

We also tend to avoid routine checkups and preventative health visits because we don’t ‘feel bad’ and aren’t experiencing any symptoms that would lead us to believe that we are anything but healthy.

We’ve all done it and why? Well, to save time and money of course.  None of us want to part with either of those two things if we don’t have to.  And sometimes it works, the symptoms go away and we feel better or those online instructions for how to diagnose and treat the mystery illness were legitimate. Other times it doesn’t work and in the end we have higher costs and a longer recovery time.

So how does this related to SEO training?  The health of a website, the strength of a company’s search engine marketing strategy, is as important to the success of your business as being in good health is important to your quality of life as a person. Often-times when we try to wait it out, use resources found on Google to self-diagnose , or phone a friend – we get good information that may really be misinformation.

How can good information be misinformation?

  1. Not all industries are the same -  While the general tactics also known as “Best Practices” can be applied to your website and search engine optimization strategy, they may not be the best practices within your competitive landscape.  It’s even possible that in following the generic rules you’re opening the door for your competition to move ahead of you.
  2. Not all websites are the same – Is your goal to sell or to generate leads?  How might the “best practices” vary depending on the goals of the business and the website?
  3. Information becomes quickly outdated – Even if it’s from a trusted resource, the information could easily be outdated.
  4. It doesn’t come with directions – Most of the time even the “how to tips” are so general, that unless you already have a working knowledge of the subject, it’s difficult at best to figure out how to implement the advice.

I’m a huge fan of all of the free information available, I’m also a fan of formal workshops and training.  You may think I’m saying that because I’m an instructor, but my love affair with training started long before becoming part of the Search Engine Academy.  My days of attending and paying for training, especially hands-on workshops are far from over.

Reasons to Embrace (and pay for) SEO Training:

  • It will increase your confidence level and all of the articles you’re reading will make even more sense.
  • It accelerates the learning curve  – what will take months of spare time reading to absorb can be covered in a short period of time.
  • You’ll gain insight into how all of the pieces and parts fit together rather than having to connect the dots through multiple resources.
  • A well done workshop will equip you to either do your own search engine marketing or know what to look for in an SEO or SMM agency.

In my opinion relying on articles and free information alone when it comes to search engine optimization is a little like hiring a CPA that doesn’t keep up with their continuing education units.  My guess is that there are just as many free accounting articles as there are SEO posts, but I wouldn’t want an accountant who only used Google as a resource and I sure as heck wouldn’t want to do my own taxes unless I were properly trained.

The investment in both time and money ensures that any time or money you’re spending toward future or ongoing efforts is paying off.

What are your thoughts about training?

Until next time,

Cheers!

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: SEO, SEO Blogging, Workshops Tagged With: , , ,

Free Website Traffic – 5 Advanced Keyword Research Tips

February 15, 2013 By 6 Comments

Increasing web traffic is a common topic of conversation these days.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t start teaching keyword research and the basics of search engine optimization in high school.

Gold key on words - Keyword ResearchThe most traditional way to think about keyword research is to think about the words people use when they are searching.  We all know our own businesses and  the industry terminology;  we can talk in acronyms, jargon, and company-speak along with the best.

There may be situations in which your prospective customers are looking for those specific terms, but more often than not their search is behavioral in nature.

People go to Google with a question in mind or a problem they need to solve, sure sometimes people search just for the fun of it, but most of the time they are looking for detailed and relevant information.  They are searching with intent.

Back in the old days, searches tended to be on one or two words and searchers had to spend a lot of time sifting through the results to find the information they are looking for.

As both search engines and people have gotten more sophisticated search phrases are getting longer and more specific.  This makes blogging a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website.  It doesn’t make sense to add a page of content to your website for every long tail keyword phrase, but it does make sense to write a blog post that provides great information and is optimized for the phrase.

So when you’re getting ready to write that blog post, article, or fill out the content on your website, there are a few things you can do to take your keyword research to the next level and take advantage of the long tail phrases to drive more free traffic to your website.

5 Advanced Keyword Research Tips

  1. In addition to the root words for your industry, include behavioral terms as well.  People don’t want to find something generic, they want the ‘best,’ or the ‘warmest,’ or the most ‘affordable.’
  2. Think about whether the intent is to research or to buy, the words and the content you create may be completely different based on the searcher’s ‘intent.’
  3. Continue to use keyword tools to validate your phrases, but also include intelligence from social networks and the trends that relate to your niche.
  4. Research and use related topics – if you sell swimming pools, those buyers also need pool cleaning products, suntan oil, and other pool accessories.
  5. Use Google’s related search as as source for additional ideas and as a source of validation.

For example, the related searches for the phrase “inground swimming pool,” might generate an idea to write an article to help a prospective buyer understand various options and the long term and short term costs associated with putting a pool in.  This is the type of information someone would be looking for during the research phase.

inground swimming pool google related searches

When it comes to doing keyword research think about why a person is searching in addition to what they might be searching for.  Don’t forget to have fun and use your imagination.

What’s your favorite keyword research tip?

Until next time.

Cheers!

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Content Marketing, Insights for Search, SEO, SEO Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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