Keeping Up With SEO News – 11 Great Sources

May 17, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Howdy ho, my SEO friends! Peeps want to know how those of us who are part of Search Engine Academy keep up with SEO news. I’d like to share my resources with you.

SEO changes every day, it seems. It can be challenging to keep up with what’s going on. I usually spend about an hour to two hours each day, combing the blogs and reading about what’s new, hot and happening. All’s you have to do is go dark or get off the grid for about a day, and the next thing you know, SEO processes and strategies you’ve been doing are suddenly black hat SEO or just obsolete, ugh!

So here’s my trusted, preferred sources that keep me up to date on SEO:

  • Google Analytics Blog – here’s where you can learn all about the newest features and benefits of Google Analytics. They do a great job of explaining changes and updates, and how to best use them.
  • Google Webmaster Central Blog – everything that your Google Webmaster Tools touches upon can be found here. Updates, discussions and new features are posted.
  • Google’s Chief Anti-Spam Engineer Matt Cutts – I really like this one. Matt humanizes himself to us by talking about his 30 day challenges he likes to implement in his life, as well as all things anti-spam that are being addressed by Google.
  • Search Engine Guide – lots of good stuff about brand building, local SEO, PPC, link building, keywords and more.
  • Search Engine Journal – lots of guest writers share their knowledge and information about ranking, Facebook, Google manual penalties, digital marketing strategies and so much more.
  • Search Engine Land – my favorite, and probably most every other SEOer’s on the planet. I absolutely trust Danny Sullivan and the guest bloggers who happily give away valuable information, processes and strategies to boost my SEO knowledge on link building, blogging, keyword research and content marketing.
  • Search Engine Roundtable – Barry Schwartz is a great, great SEO guy. I depend upon Barry to be the one of the first, if not the first SEOer to break news about Google updates. He’s busy combing webmaster forums and keeps his ear to the ground better than any other SEO writer I follow.
  • Search Engine Watch – these guys are great. The guest writers are experts in link building, local SEO, mobile SEO, PPC and so much more SEO news and happenings.
  • SEO By The Sea – if you want to keep up with Google patent filings, Bill Slawski is the man. He’s staked out his niche in reporting and analyzing Google patents, as well as basic SEO functions that are timeless. Bill writes in a very easy to understand style.
  • SEOMoz – I love this site for their famous “Whiteboard Friday” feature, as well as the interesting news and content about the ups and downs of clients, enterprise SEO, being an in-house SEOer vs. freelance, as well as great posts on content management.
  • Webmaster World – from YouTube to code to social to hardware and more, subscribe to these guys and get a well-rounded perspective on things that support your SEO efforts.

So there you have it! What are your favorite SEO blogs or writers that aren’t mentioned here? Let me know in your comments.

Until next time, keep it between the ditches!

Best to you,

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Filed Under: Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Link Building, Local Search, News, Pay Per Click, SEO Tagged With: , ,

A Google Penguin Update Is Imminent – Are You Ready?

May 13, 2013 By + 2 Comments

Hey there, SEO warriors! Search Engine Academy, like so many others, has found out a Google Penguin update is coming sometime soon. Twitter deets:

Notice Of Google Penguin Update Via Twitter From Matt Cutts

 

Search Engine Land and Search Engine Watch first reported the Penguin update last week.

Let’s refresh our brains as to what the Google Penguin algorithm feature is all about. When Penguin was released on April 24, 2012, it was mainly designed to penalize sites with spammy linking schemes that consisted of taking a high-traffic keyword, creating thousands and thousands of links with the phrase in the anchor text, then parking those links on hundreds of sites. In other words, keyword stuffing in anchor text link on really scummy, spammy link farms with little domain diversity.

OK, you’re level set on what Penguin is about, and now we know it’s a-coming. Is there anything you can do to get ready? Glad you asked, because yes, there are a few things you can start checking to see if you’re possibly in line to nailed. Let’s go over them quickly, so you can get your butt to work, if need be.

Do a link profile analysis on your sites and your client’s websites. Take whatever tool makes you happy – Open Site Explorer, Xenu, SEO SpyGlass – whichever, and get the inbound back links for each of your sites. Google Webmaster Tools is also a great resource to review them. Dump the results in a spreadsheet, and sort them such that you can see two main things:

  • Anchor Text Diversity
  • Link Domain Diversity

What do we mean by these? First, make sure your anchor text is predominantly the company, business name and/or branding. Exact keyword phrases should be de-emphasized, and the majority of your anchor text should reflect the company or business name and branding.  Note the percentages and if you need to contact sites to get new, branded anchor text for your links, right now this very minute is the time to start. Seriously.

As far as link domain diversity is concerned, look at the domains. Do you have a lot of links from the same domain, or just a few domains? Do any of them look suspicious or spammy? Does anything really weird or off-kilter stand out to you? If so, make a note of those domains. If you find any, you need to contact the site immediately and get the links removed. If you can’t get a response, you may want to consider the Google Link Disavow tool.

Got it? OK, if need be, get cracking. Good luck! As soon as I hear more, I’ll post another article about it. As RuPaul says, “Good luck, and don’t frog it up!”

Keep it between the ditches and be safe!

All the best to you,

 

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Filed Under: Google Webmaster Tools, Link Building, News, SEO Tagged With: , ,

Search Engine Optimization Advantages

May 10, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Good day, my wonderful SEO friends! Search Engine Academy likes to talk about search engine optimization advantages because people who have websites that don’t show up anywhere in Google search results are unhappy people, and the world does not need more unhappy people, there are enough already, thank you very much!

So…What Are The Search Engine Optimization Advantages?

Glad you asked. Here are a few for you ponder while pouring a beer, for example:

  • If you apply SEO to your site, you’re conducting due diligence by not leaving search results visibility to chance. You may feel like it’s an exercise in futility, but if you didn’t do it…you’d be on page 347 of search results. Really.
  • You’re giving the search engine crawlers the information they need to rank and index your site.
  • You’ve crafted really nice, unique meta titles and descriptions to encourage a higher click through rate (CTR), which makes Google happy, because if your CTR for pages increases, you could well end up getting more Google love by being pushed up higher in the SERPs.
  • You’ve busted your hind parts writing great, useful, unique content that your competitor didn’t bother with. People would rather read your pages, so take THAT, Mr. Competition!
  • You hack away diligently at trying to find good link partners, because you know Google places so much emphasis on links. Sure, it hurts to slog away, but you know the price to pay if you don’t at least TRY.
  • You’ve taken the time to map out your site structure, to make it user-friendly and easy for your most important content to be within one or two clicks by your target audience, congratulations!
  • As much as you may hate and detest it, you’re blogging. You know the big G (Google, not the U.S. government) loves fresh new content as much as your readers do, so you turn to and crank out blog posts. I’m so with you.
  • Because you’re a local business, you’ve taken the extra time and energy to apply local SEO processes and strategies to get better rankings for local search queries.

Since you know a lot about SEO, you also apply it to your social media efforts, like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus and all the others that are floating out there in cyber space.

There are plenty more search engine optimization advantages. I’ve only listed a few that are very obvious. What else do you do for SEO on your site?

Until next time, keep it between the ditches and get home safe!

All the best to you,

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Link Building, Local Search, Meta Tags, SEO, SEO Blogging Tagged With: ,

Link Building Campaign Woes – SEO Rant

May 8, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Good day, my SEO heroes! Link building campaign strategies are just one of the many things we teach at Search Engine Academy.

I also do client work, and I want to share something with you about trying to find link partners for my clients that just leaves my mouth hanging to the floor.

First off, we know that Google Penguin has drastically changed the way we build links. It’s slower than ever, and each link won is like fighting an epic and legendary battle with everything we’ve got in our arsenal.

Doing a careful link analysis and tailoring a very individual request for a link takes more time than ever, and yet, this is the way it’s got to be done in the brave new post-Penguin world. So be it.

Well, when I do all the above, and given everything else I have to do on any given day, if I crank out five requests per day, I feel good about myself and think that I will have a nice shot of single malt during happy hour at my own hacienda, thank you very much.

So I start getting back some replies (most webmasters just ignore my emails, par for the course), and let me tell you, there is something going on out there with web owners who do not thoroughly read or keep up with Google’s SEO recommended best practices and guidelines. Let me share with you a theme that’s developing, one that I find quite disturbing.

I’m getting back replies along the lines of “yeah, no, I don’t want to trade links with you. I heard Google no longer wants anyone to exchange links or ask for them, so I don’t do that anymore.”

When I got this back, you could have knocked me to the floor. Where in the sweet love of almighty Google did THAT come from? I had to read it multiple times to make sure my eyeballs and glasses weren’t showing me something out of a nightmare. After several readings, some of them out loud to my cats, I realized I was seeing some massive, massive mis-interpretation and/or misinformation.

I mulled over what to do. Should I take time that I really don’t have, expend energy that could be used in a more positive manner (like finding more link partners), attempt to educate someone about the truth (I wasn’t feeling it, really), and tell them what Google Penguin is all about?

No. Not my responsibility.

If these folks choose to follow half-baked information sources, or if they develop this theory in their own fevered brain, who am I to disabuse them?

You may think otherwise of me, but I decided to use my precious time, energy and resources to move on and continue searching for complimentary websites, but I just wanted to share this little nugget of intelligence with you, dear gentle SEO reader.

I hope these folks wake up someday and realize they are hurting their own sites by sitting on the sidelines and avoid building links. Granted, link building is hard, hard, HARD, but you gotta try at least every once in awhile, don’t you think?

Until next time, keep it between the ditches comrades!

All the best,

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Filed Under: Google Webmaster Tools, Link Building, Rant, SEO Tagged With: ,

Does SEO Matter Anymore To Rank In SERPS?

May 7, 2013 By + 2 Comments

Howdy ho, my SEO comrades! Search Engine Academy has to answer the question “does SEO matter?” posed constantly. The short answer is yes, SEO does matter. The longer answer is that there’s more than just SEO nowadays to get visbility in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

does SEO matterThe next thing I hear is “well, just exactly how much does SEO matter in the big scheme of things?” I can’t give you a number or percentage; smarter people than me probably have that knowledge on the tip of their tongue, but let’s just say it matters a helluva lot.

Let’s take a look at some fundamental SEO stuff and things that aren’t likely to change anytime soon.

First, doing keyword research – the foundation, the bedrock, the number one step in your SEO journey – is more critical than ever. She who ranks high for multiple keyword phrases shows up higher in SERPs. Besides, if you don’t know the keywords and phrases your target market is plugging into Google, how the hell are you going to show up in their search results?

Creating and optimizing useful, unique meta data – I hope it’s not a news flash to you that taking the time and effort to make butt kicking meta titles and descriptions that match the page content they’re married to is still extremely important. Use your chosen keyword phrase in the title and description tag, try to fit in a call to action, and if local SEO is critical for your business, be sure to include specific geographic information such as a city, state, county, zip code, etc.

Writing high quality, useful, unique, educational content – Google maintains your job is to write for your human reader, not the search engine crawlers. By creating content that stands out and using natural language processing, and taking personalization of search into account, you should stand a good chance of getting good visibility in the SERPs.

Providing a helpful site navigation experience with a user-friendly linking strategy – be sure you sit down and map out your site’s Information Architecture (IA). Make it easy for your target audience to find your most important content quickly. Yes, this is part of SEO.

Provide a site map – I don’t care if your site is only five pages. Make sure the site map is linked on every page. It’s for the human reader and the search engine crawlers.

Even if you’re doing social media, does SEO matter still?

Sure – SEO augments your social media efforts. Can you use a keyword phrase in your social media streams, titles, descriptions or alt tags? Do so!

In particular, if you’re playing around in Google Plus with a personal profile, Google Authorship, Google Community pages and hangouts, it’s to your advantage to use your SEO skills and knowledge to make sure you show up higher in the G+ landscape.

I hope this short diatribe answers the question. I realize there are fads, that strategies come and go, or are turned upside down by algorithm and ranking changes like Google Penguin and Panda, but through all the changes, SEO still comes out on the other side as being necessary.

Until next time, keep it between the ditches, and if you’ve got some basic SEO to do your site, why not go ahead and knock it out, then measure the results?

All the best to you,

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Link Building, Local Search, Meta Tags, SEO Tagged With: , ,

Good Search Engine Optimization Experts Don’t Make Promises They Can’t Keep

April 30, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Not only I do I teach SEO for Search Engine Academy, but I also provide search engine optimization (SEO) support services. One of the fastest ways I disqualify potential clients is if they ask me “How long will it take you to get me on page one of Google?”

I try to hang up faster than a starving man let loose on an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Good Search Engine Optimization pros tell the truthThose are kinds of clients who end up being pains in the assets, because they never stop with the questions that require answers that go into gray hat or black hat SEO.

Back in my old ‘hood in the District of Columbia, there was a saying you’d hear quite a lot. I’ve cleaned it up to publish here, and it goes like this: Don’t let your mouth write a check that your hind parts can’t cash. I’m sure you can guess how it really goes.

And so I say to you, those who are interested in SEO: A good SEO specialist/consultant won’t make promises they know they can’t keep.

  • A promise like “I’ll always get you ranked on page 1, position 1 in Google.”
  • A promise like “You’ll never drop in search engine rankings or traffic.”
  • A promise like “I’ll buy you buttloads of links and that’ll keep you in the top of search results.”
  • A promise like “We’ll write up lots of articles and submit them everywhere!”

Good SEOers know the line never just goes to the right and up without interruption. They know it’s normal to see some roller coaster tracks going across the screen. They understand that demand for keyword phrases may come and go, and that they always have to be researching phrases to create new content.

Good SEO consultants and specialists know that link building is a slow grind. If you can get one or two good links every once in awhile, count yourself lucky.

Good SEOers understand that Google and the client’s competition always changes, so they also keep changing and updating the client’s site.

Good SEO peeps understand that a new business just starting out can’t expect to rank for single keywords or phrases that are just a couple words long. They know the long tail keyword strategy applied diligently to many content pages will get the client’s site boosted in the SERPs.

So which one are you? Do you make a promise you can’t keep, or do you gently and lovingly tell the client or prospect the truth?

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Link Building, Rant, SEO Tagged With: , ,

7 Google Authorship Questions and Answers – Interview With Mark Traphagen # SEO

April 17, 2013 By + 4 Comments

Howdy, my fellow SEOers! Today, Search Engine Academy is doing something a little different. We’ve interviewed Mark Traphagen, the Director of Digital Outreach at Virante, an online marketing firm located in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina to find out about Google Authorship.

Google Authorship Expert - Mark Traphagen Mark is one of the moderators of the Google Authorship & Author Rank Google Plus community. He was one of the early adopters of Google Authorship, and has seen the positive impact it has for thought leaders in their respective industries. I approached Mark about doing an interview with Search Engine Academy on Google Authorship, and since he was cool with it, I came up with seven questions about Google Authorship for Mark to answer.

So, without further ado, take it away, Mark!

What did you think when you first read about Google Authorship? What was it initially about Google Authorship that led you to incorporate it?

Soon after I got into blogging (around 2005) I became fascinated with the whole subject of personal influence and branding. As the social web developed, I observed that people would listen to and trust an individual much more quickly than they would a corporate brand. I became convinced that content creation tied to an identifiable individual could provide a powerful competitive advantage. Google Authorship appeared to offer an opportunity to put that plan on steroids, as my name and photo next to search results for my content would continually reinforce my personal brand.

How soon did you see positive results from incorporating Google Authorship for yourself?

I have to admit it was quite a thrill when I first started seeing my author photo in search results in late 2011. Anyone who creates content with the purpose of influencing or attracting others is excited to see his or her creation show up high in Google Search, but seeing your own face right there on the mighty front page of Google is pretty heady stuff. But the real excitement came when we noticed a sharp increase in our organic traffic.

In your opinion, what is the single biggest benefit of incorporating Google Authorship?

The most tangible benefit is the higher click-through rates that Authorship results typically get, but to me the bigger benefit is the powerful reinforcement of your personal brand and authority in a field. People tend to search a lot within a narrow range of topics, and if you are producing authoritative content on those topics, they’re going to start seeing your face a lot in Google. I like to tell the story of the time I was at a major conference a few months ago and a guy grabbed me by the shoulders in a hallway and stated at me like he knew me. “I’ve got it!” he finally exclaimed. “You’re all over my search results!”

Why do you think Google Authorship is being confused with Author Rank, which is not a ranking factor yet, if ever?

Google Authorship and Author Rank are both things that a lot of people have heard about, but we have to remember that most people don’t spend as much time reading about and studying the topic as some of us do. Author Rank is the idea that Google may at some point use the data they can see about how people interact with the content of an author as a ranking factor in search results. It’s based on a series of Google patents from several years ago, along with some occasional hints from Google representative that it’s something they might do “some day; at some point.”

I think people talk more about Author Rank, or even assume that it is in effect, because they wish it were a reality. It’s a very attractive idea, having trusted content creators helping to improve the quality of search results. And I think some people assume that Google is so powerful, anything they talk about they can instantly do. But there are a number of technical hurdles that have to be overcome before Google would allow such a signal to have major effect on its precious search rankings. For example, sentiment is still difficult for machines to judge. A lot of people may be talking about or linking to a particular author, but if most of them are saying something bad about him, that shouldn’t be a positive signal!

Could you explain for our readers the difference between Google Authorship and the “rel=publisher?”

At the simplest level, Google Authorship (identified with the schema markup tag rel=”author”) is for individuals to identify their content across the web with their personal Google+ profile, while a rel=”publisher” link is meant to confirm a verified relationship with a site’s Google+ brand page. Only the Authorship connection is qualified to produce the Authorship rich snippet search result (the author’s photo and name on a result for her content). The rel=”publisher” link allows Google to verify a brand page as “official,” enables the aggregation of +1 numbers from both the web site and brand page, and can qualify a brand to get a rich media “Knowledge Graph” result in the Google Search sidebar.

When should a new website/web writer implement Google Authorship?

Immediately! There is nothing hindering anyone who creates content anywhere on the web from linking it with Google Authorship. Fundamentally, you just link from your content (or site author page) to your Google+ profile (preferably with a rel=”author” tag attached) and link back to the site from the Contributor To section of your G+ profile. The only other qualification is that you must have a clear face photo for your G+ profile image. Newer authors should be aware that it can take some time before your photo starts showing in search, and Google doesn’t guarantee that it will always show. Increased engagement and interactions with your content, particularly on Google+, seems to help make one’s photo show up sooner and more often.

Finally, do you have any thoughts about the future benefits or search engine optimization implications for Google Authorship?

I still firmly believe that Google will eventually find a way to have enough confidence in the signals it gets from Authorship data to use it as a major ranking signal. In the meantime, all those using Authorship now can be building up a history of positive signals so that when Author Rank kicks in, they will be ahead of the pack. In the meantime, there are still very strong benefits from the increased click-through rates as people’s eyes are drawn to a face on the search page, and the opportunity to build and reinforce your personal authority in a topical range.

So there you have it, gentle SEO reader. What are you waiting for? Set up your Google Plus profile, then incorporate Google Authorship and begin reaping the benefits of standing out in the SERPs a little more!

Until next time, keep it between the ditches as always, umkay?

Best to you,

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Google Webmaster Tools, Link Building, SEO, SEO Blogging Tagged With: ,

Internet Marketing – Learning To Recognize And Explore Common User Behavior Search Patterns

April 4, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Internet Marketing – Learning To Recognize And Explore Common User Behavior Search Patterns
By John Alexander

For years now, I have been fascinated with the concept of how people search for information on the Web. While it’s true that the Web has made searching for information easier, it is still interesting that search methods can vary widely depending on how the individual is thinking plus I still find that the ways they conduct a search still follow a much more limited number of identifiable patterns.

By examining certain factors that cause variables in user search behavior and taking into account those details, you’ll often discover variations to help identify common search behavior patterns and gather a sense of what is most important within the users life that causes them to search the way they do.

What type of behaviors are going on over the Web these days?

It’s most often that a person’s search behavior is influenced by the conditions that they are experiencing in their lives.

When it comes to understanding user behavior, for the purpose of keyword research and SEO, I have learned that too often, the keyword research defaults to logically guessing at what keywords might be used rather than exploring a much wider scope and researching all of the associated data.
What Factors affect user search behavior?

Search behavior is the result of several independent factors and influences that the user brings to the search operation.

1. Search experience – these days people are searching more intelligently:

Users who possess a better understanding of a search engine’s capabilities and options may have more ways
to go about finding fresh information. If you for example know how to use Boolean operators, exact strings,
filtering controls, and have proven strategies for exploiting search, then you have a much richer arsenal
at your disposal for research. But search experience alone, by no means is an absolute requirement for success.

I have seen that users who are short on possessing the technical skills and yet may be rich in there
exploration of even more common terms, that can often get by and find those nuggets of gold too. On the other
hand, there are others who tend to have great difficulty finding information in certain subject matter or an
unfamiliar body of knowledge.

2. What are the most common stumbling blocks that prevent people from discovering useful and
   interesting user search behaviors.

A. Many people tend to want to explore keyword phrases based on the most logical options. They often
will in fact, spend periods of time trying to guess at the phrases that make the “most sense.”
This type of research rarely reveals the trails of gold that exist. Most often the results only
reflect highly competitive terms and often only average search volumes that a huge number of people
seem to be limiting themselves to.

B. Often people are not exploring the data because they assume some of smaller, boring little words
could not possibly have any benefit. This is simply not the case. But the only way to determine
whether a root word may be part of a fuller, revealing, search phrase that is actually being used,
is to follow through the process to completion. I have found many examples where what started as a
random even slightly illogical sorting of data, ends up revealing very powerful and telling phrases.

By this, I am referring to those little phrase clusters, that actually tell a bigger story about the
conditions existing in the users life.

C. Sometimes a business will postpone the keyword research phase (thinking they’ll do it later
on after the Web site is finished being built.) This is putting the cart before the horse
and does not afford the SEO staff the ability to build content to match the timing and the
magnitude of the hottest searches that are happening in the now.

A far smarter approach is to get the keyword research done first so that you can take advantage
of the true search phrases that users are searching with. It’s wisdom to use fair to high
volume keyword phrases that also have lower or moderate competition.

In this fashion, you are publishing each new page with a strategy to attract the most correct
searching audience and in many cases, you’ll achieve much higher organic results within a much
shorter time frame simply because you are not competing with the masses.

3. Considering the users cognitive search style:
• Those with a broader thinking style usually first try to build a wider level of understanding
across several topics that are related in some way.

• The more logical or analytical style thinkers tend to dig right into a specific topic and
research it thoroughly to resolve a related specific problem.

Many people lie somewhere in between either of these extremes and occasionally using either cognitive style but often tending to use more of one than the other.

4. Understanding user search behavior with the end goal:

Search criteria will vary from one query to the next, and may be broadly classified into 3
different category types such as:

• Navigational type searches (which are usually conducted to find a specific location,)
- Looking for a site to convert world time zones
- A site that allows the look up of zip codes
- Etc.

• Informational searches (which are usually conducted to find specific and detailed information,)
- Statistical searches
- Historical information
- Instructional information
- Etc.

•Transactional searches occur (which usually is conducted to transaction related variables,)
- Buying tickets online
- Locating flight costs, travel times on an airline
- Etc.

5. Taking into Account the user’s reference of seeking information:

This can range from exploring information on known items or products, where people know exactly what they need and how to describe it, to much more exploratory searches, where they may only possess a loose concept what they want to find.

Examples of telling search phrases:

- “crime rates in New York City” or “crime statistics NYC” (could possibly reflect a user interested in moving to New York)

- “Nikon vs Cannon”   (comparison shopping for digital camera prices and benefits)

- cost of living comparrisons in the US (Someone searching for where it might be more affordable to live.)

- franchise opportunities under 10k  (a business opportunity seeker looking for a lower cost franchise)

- dollarama versus walmart  (Dollar store shoppers trying to price comparrisons on less expensive products.)

- These are only just a few short samples of keywords that reveal search behavioural insights – There are thousands more.

In Summary:

User search behavior varies with technical skills, cognitive styles, search goals, and mode of seeking.

All of these factors will interact in complex ways to influence a user’s actions. The primary thing is that the SEO or business owner cannot select the search behavior that a user will follow
when conducting a search.

However, it is possible to research keyword phrases in a way that helps reveal user search behavior and give you the insights into what your ideal buying audience is actually searching for. With this comes the revelation of the user’s search intent which is still extremely valuable when building useful and engaging content that ties in very hot and in demand topics for the searching audience.

About Keyword Forensics Researcher John Alexander:

John Alexander is Founder and Director of Training for Search Engine Academy since January 2002.
John also offers consulting services and keyword forensics research services to SEO Professionals,
Internet Marketers, Web development professionals and business owners through
Http://KeywordForensics.com

Are you interested in attending an SEO Workshop?

Check out our upcoming SEO training locations and dates here.

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Filed Under: Content Marketing, Duplicate Content, Insights for Search, Link Building, Local Search, PR Web, SEO, SEO Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Search Engine Academy Interview With SEO Powersuite #SEO

January 22, 2013 By + Leave a Comment

Good day, all you SEO heroes out there! Today, Search Engine Academy is doing something a little different. I interviewed Aleh Barysevich, the Marketing Director for Link-Assistant.

Link-Assistant offers SEO Powersuite for search engine optimization professionals. SEO Powersuite is four tools that help SEO specialists do ranking analysis, SEO website audits, find link opportunities and more. Without further ado, take it away Aleh!


Link-Assistant Marketing Director Aleh Barysevich for SEO Powersuite

What is your background?

I come from development background. My friend Viktar, who’s currently Link-Assistant.Com’s CEO, and I started a development outsourcing business in 2004. For about a year, we were doing IT projects for customers worldwide. However, it didn’t take us long to realize there’s market for SEO software, so we focused on developing that.

How long have you been doing SEO and/or online marketing?

The launch of our first site was the turning point in my interest to SEO and online marketing. Back in 2004, Viktar and I started a website to market our development services. You bet we wanted it rank high for crazy competitive keywords, so we started looking into SEO: rules, principles and strategies. It turned out to be a fascinatingly vibrant industry, which keeps me captivated to date. A lot has changed over the eight years, but my passion for the niche is the same.

Was there any one event, incident or epiphany that happened to you that led you to visualize and create SEO PowerSuite?

When we started mastering SEO to optimize our development service site, we wrote a script to check our rankings (a prototype of Rank Tracker) and a program to reach out to link partners (the prototype of LinkAssistant).

We saw it working good and saving us time with our routine tasks, so we shared it for free, assuming it could be helpful for someone else as well. Surprisingly, very few people downloaded this software until we put a $30-price label on it! It was then that we saw a real interest in the software from the community, and it was the very moment we decided to develop and market SEO software.

Currently, SEO PowerSuite is made up of four tools: Rank Tracker, WebSite Auditor, SEO SpyGlass and LinkAssistant. It wasn’t SEO PowerSuite as it is from the very start. First, we launched LinkAssistant, which was originally meant for link exchange and market research. We no way recommend link exchange in 2013, and we occasionally have thoughts about excluding LinkAssistant from SEO PowerSuite altogether.

But our long-term customers are against it as they keep using it. These people do not use the software for any unpopular practices: they have revealed its hidden powers as a link management tool.

What are your biggest challenges in creating new functionality and doing updates for all SEO PowerSuite applications?

Surprising as it may seem, we always have multiple functionality updates on our list, thanks to both the industry itself and our users. Our users are amazing: they would often send crazy thorough feedback on the software and valuable suggestions for improvements, which ultimately makes a ready-made update calendar.

The industry is amazing as well: there are so many new features rolled out by search engines and social networks that all we have to do is follow them and make sure the software is compliant with the latest industry trends.

Let me give you an example. When Google included universal search results into web results, we assumed our users would love to know where their sites rank for their keywords in News, Images, Videos and other vertical search types. So we introduced universal search results into Rank Tracker, and now when users see Places 4 (2) mark in their ranking table, it means that their site ranks second in Places block, which occupies the forth place in Google search results.

Thus, perhaps the biggest challenge is keeping the pace with the industry updates and customers’ feedback rather than inventing new functionality.

What top two things do you think is going to be important for SEOers to concentrate on in 2013?

Great question! We’ve just released the Must-read SEO guidelines for 2013 on our website. It’s the first part of a 5-part SEO training series which we’ll be rolling out regularly, so if you’re interested in reading the rest, download SEO PowerSuite for free and get on our user mailing list.

In short, I believe that in 2013 SEOers should concentrate on three major aspects:

1)    Get the big picture and see the opportunities (ranking, link building) they might have missed out on. The first part of the guide I referred to is about all aspects of the big ranking picture: true-to-life rankings vs personalized search results, competition and negative SEO, AuthorRank usage, universal search results, traffic and ranking stats correlation.

2)    Focus on creating “big” content and promoting it. Content has always been the king, but this axiom is more than true in 2013. Along with focusing on deeper content, i.e. the one that gives more value to your audience, diversify content forms: videos, infographics, ebooks, etc.

3)    Embrace social media. The two niches, I mean SEO and social media, will be blended together even further in 2013.

Do you think doing social media processes will ever trump doing SEO? If so, why? If not, why?

That’s a tricky question really! SEO and social media go hand in hand, complementing and enriching one another. However, I’m positive it is impossible for social media to replace SEO, and here’s why.

When people say SEO is to be replaced by social media, they narrow SEO to link building, forgetting SEO is also about keyword research, flawless site structure and reasonably optimized content.  In this sense, social media will hardly ever trump SEO.

That said, there are different types of sites promoted. There are topics that are willingly endorsed by people and “share-sensitive” niches. Lots of us will like a new review of The Hobbit on Facebook, but very few will publicly recommend their dermatologist. I mean there will always be niches, where “impersonal” link building will hardly be ever replaced by SM-driven link building and promotion. These are types of sites that can rely on high organic positions solely.

But it’s a kind of an extreme example. If there’s an opportunity to create a vibrant community around your site, do it, take the best of both SEO and social media and find your unique way to dedicated customers or readers who can easily find you online.

Can you tell Search Engine Academy what’s on the horizon for new software products and services from Link Assistant in 2013?

Just two months ago, in November 2012, we launched new software. It is called BuzzBundle and it’s a social media management tool.

Surely, the just-out BuzzBundle tool will be growing its functionality in 2013 on and on, giving users Facebook Pages support, more social sources (LinkedIn, YouTube and more) and professional reports on social media campaigns. In 2013, SEO PowerSuite is to provide users with more ranking data and more specific ways to analyze it, giving more prominence to mobile SEO and adding a number of crucial features to assist you in it.

Most likely, we’ll also modify link software to assist in alternative link building methods.

SEO PowerSuite will continue developing its in-house data sources: the backlink crawler in SEO SpyGlass, that lets you find up to 200K backlinks per site, plus the planned-to-be ranking crawler and keyword analysis tool.

What is Link Assistant’s company philosophy? How did it get formed?

Link-Assistant.Com’s mission is to be the software house for best internet marketing tools, to provide the industry with the most data-rich yet the most affordable solutions in their class.

What excites you the most about updating and offering SEO Powersuite to SEOers, webmasters and marketers?

The most exciting thing is the feedback, i.e. seeing that our tools, both SEO PowerSuite and BuzzBundle, turn out to be helpful for online promoters and marketers. See people write long reviews about the software, showing how exactly our tools helped them increase their online earning.

Do you ever get frustrated with all the changes that Google and other large search engines roll out constantly? If so, what do you do to handle the frustration? If not, what’s your secret?

True, last year was a challenging one for many SEOs, with Pandas and Penguins pouring on our heads. I wouldn’t say that working in online marketing industry is a walk in the park, on the contrary, you never know what to wait for tomorrow. But that’s what makes it so exciting: you always have to be in good shape to meet the challenges all-armed and moreover help your community survive the search engine changes.

I think there’s more panic than real threat around search engine updates, so the best way to handle them is stay cool and always stick to the ground SEO rules Google suggests in their Search Quality Guidelines.

Is there anything else you’d like Search Engine Academy’s readers to know about you and Link Assistant?

We’d be honored if our tools will help you improve online visibility of your brands. We also like talking a lot, so we’ll be glad if you stop by and say hi to us on Facebook fb.me/LinkAssistant, Twitter @LinkAssistant or Google Plus gplus.to/LinkAssistant.

To give our software a try, download SEO PowerSuite and BuzzBundle for free – this might be a turning point in your internet marketing career.

Many thanks to Aleh for taking time out of his busy schedule to answer some SEO questions from Search Engine Academy.

Until next time, keep it between the ditches, umkay?

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: Link Building, Meta Tags, SEO Tagged With: , ,

Internet Marketing – Search Engine Optimization Experts Can Help You Grow Your Business

January 18, 2013 By + 2 Comments

If you want the benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) but just
don’t have the time, or inclination, to learn how to do it or to spend
the time doing it yourself, you don’t have to miss out. You can hire
search engine optimization experts to do it all for you.

If you’re a small business just starting out you may think that you
won’t be able to afford to hire anyone, and you may be right. I don’t
have any way to know your budget, but I do know that there are many
companies online who specialize in this type of work and work with
small and mid sized companies.

The reason I know many of these professional firms is that here at the
Search Engine Academy, we’ve been training many of them over the last
11 years or so since 2002.

When you reach out to a SEO firm, you may actually find that you may be
able to afford it after all.

The truth is that to have a vibrant and effective SEO campaign will take
some time and effort. You see, the search engines are always “improving”
their algorithms and they don’t like to share to much detail, but they
prefer (naturally to sell sponsored Pay Per Click listings) and they don’t
exactly tell every one just exactly how they figure out which sites will
be ranked for top visibility.

For this reason a lot of self-taught SEO is little more than intelligent
guessing. It is pretty much a full time job to stay abreast of all the changes
being made in regards to SEO. That’s why you want to hire someone if at all
possible.

Many of our professionally trained SEO students are Alumni graduates, which
means they tend to come back to our Workshops every so often because they
understand the value of being kept up to date with the freshest strategies.

And don’t think that just because your niece Sally, is online all the time
and can put up a blog or send out a tweet that she is competent to do SEO
for you, because most of the time that won’t be the case.

There are many elements that go into a successful SEO strategy and a professional
firm will have their own way of doing things, but there are some things that you
will want to look for.

1. For one thing, any company you are looking at should provide you with an initial
assessment of your website. They should be able to give you an idea based on where
you are already, how much the whole thing will cost.

2. After that, they should be able to come up with an extensive keyword list based on
actual research (not guesswork) that is loaded with highly targeted and highly relevant
keywords based on how your ideal buying audiences are searching the Web.

How can someone determine the most exact and correct keyword phrase usage
by searchers?

The thing to remember is that the reason people search the Internet in the
fashion they do, is nearly always based on the conditions in a searchers life.
So as important as it is to search for very exact keyword usage, it can be very
useful to learn how to discover user intent, through a study of search behaviour.
This is just one skill we help our students with. How to actually discover and find
the reasons why searchers are doing what they do. In class, we refer to this as
“keyword forensics research and analysis.”

Whether someone is looking to renew their mortgage, or searching for a place to
dine out on the town, or even if they are looking for specific professional
services, or price comparisons, it all begins with a search on the Web. But the
surprising thing is, that often Webmasters miss they keyword phrases that offer
such a telling story about their needs and user intent.

Nevertheless, if chosen properly, this list can be just like money in the bank for
you and your online business.

Once the keyword list is in place, the next step is to “clean up” your website. Make
sure everything is set up in the optimum way to grab the search engines attention as well
as it needs to be compelling to the reader.

And the next step once everything is as ready as can be, would be to get your optimized
pages into the search index for the search engines. After that, it will be important to
track your results so you can see how effective the changes you’ve made are.

This final step is very important, and often overlooked. If you can’t track your results
how will you know whether or not the money  you’ve invested in your SEO company is money
well spent or just a waste?

Grow Your Business With SEO in 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What should you be tracking?

  • Track how long your visitors are staying on your pages.
  • Track your conversions and you should see new leads and sales coming in.
  • Another thing that you should be tracking are the analytics that are important to
    your business.

What should you not be tracking?

Remember not to get caught up in traditional ranking reports which these days tend to
fluctuate do to the “personalization of search.” In our newest classes, we actually
teach our students how to accurately measure other things like your competitive landscape.

How to optimize your pages with more accuracy and exact5ness than ever before.

If you want to learn all the ins and outs of SEO and Social Media, Google Analytics and
how to watch for strengths and weaknesses in your competition and how to recognize new
opportunities and take advantage of them, then consider coming out to a 5 Day Complete
Hands-on SEO Workshop.

But if you are too busy just running your day to day business, then hiring your own search
engine optimization experts to oversee all your SEO needs is a great idea for any online
business. You can get the maximum benefit with a minimum of effort from you.

Choose carefully who’s voice that you listen to. When you find someone who has proven their
ability (don’t be afraid to do some due diligence checks or even ask to speak to a couple
of the SEO firm’s recent clients to see how happy they are with services rendered.

Learn about in-person, hands-on SEO workshop with one of our expert trainers!
Filed Under: 301 Redirects, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Insights for Search, Link Building, Local Search, SEO, SEO Blogging, Video for SEO, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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