SEO - Express Writers

What Happened To Google Authorship?

January 1, 2021June 27, 2014 by Adam Oakley

In a nutshell, here’s what’s actually happening to Authorship. First—no, it isn’t completely gone; Authorship still exists. Secondly—yes, Google has made a major change to it, and yes, that means our Authorship pictures will be deleted over the next few days. And yes, that is quite a big deal. What the $*&^, Google? Really?! My profile image, linked to my Authorship from my G+ profile, is not going to appear in search results anymore? It’s true. The announcement has been sourced from John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends analyst. John shared an official support.google.com link an official G+ status, just days ago on June 25. What’s happened is that the Authorship picture, which normally looks like: …is now completely gone from SERPs. So is the listed amount of Google circles in the search results. Authorship is still there, but in the form of just a light grey clickable name: Google News results are slightly different. Author profile pictures will still appear in News, but their G+ count is gone. Basically, Mueller said that Google’s efforts in deleting Authorship is to improve the visual appearance and design of their SERPs overall…especially on mobile. Ah, mobile improvement! A straw we can grasp at in the overall disheartening picture of bye-bye Authorship pictures. He also basically stated that click-through really won’t change by removing the Authorship picture in SERPs. (That is directly against the human nature—John, really? Seeing that little image next to a search result definitely influenced viewers to click that link. SearchEngineLand agreed, stating the Author picture led to more visibility and clickthroughs.) In the official Google Support page about the huge change to Authorship, Google again claims it is only “helping users discover great content.” It also lists how to get Authorship going. The REAL Reason Why Wordstream authors did some internal research and discovered that Authorship clickthrough rates were taking away significantly–and interfering with–Google Adwords clickthroughs. By removing Authorship pictures, Google came up with a tidy little solution to their Adwords distraction–just delete them. Now, Google denies that clickthrough distraction was the answer, but our talented Rand from Moz called them out on their BS: I am frustrated @JohnMu saying that it will not cost CTR. Either Google lied about the increase in CTR with photos, or they're lying now. — Rand Fishkin (@randfish) June 25, 2014 What Do We Do Now?!? The important takeaway is that Authorship still exists and is very strong and very much alive still (the Google Support page itself helps you get Authorship going, if you haven’t already). But, only credible, real authors are going to be able to acquire Authorship, going forward. This isn’t a new thing. Google reduced their Authorship results just last December to only show “more authoritative authors”. The drop in Authorship across the board was big, with a lot of stagnant author profiles no longer being featured with their image in SERPs. Simply put, Authorship is going on a pedestal. It’s not within everyone’s reach anymore. You need to publish well-researched content on an ongoing basis; and you need to interact on a regular basis in social media (this includes your G+ profile), so Google regards you as an author credible enough to grant Authorship status to (which they’ve now minimized to just a linkable name). Publishing high quality content for your niche that gives you an authority voice is crucial. Ann Smarty, Internet marketing expert, also says that: Authorship markups can now show up in results multiple times — instead of your headshot just showing up once, your author name will appear multiple times for multiple pages in one page of SERPs. Google will look at Authorship as one more foothold for credibility when determining how to rank you. Helpful Resources View Google’s Support page with the official details on the Authorship change. Need to get some ideas on how to publish quality content? One of our blogs this year addressed how content is setting the Google trends (and talks about how you can publish that type of content); and in this SiteProNews piece, we addressed how to focus on quality content in line with Google’s new updates.

Google Cracks Down on Spam with Panda 4.0 Algorithm Update

January 1, 2021May 27, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Image Source: www.famousbloggers.net Apparently, Google doesn’t plan to stop pulling rabbits out of its white hat anytime soon. Over the past weekend, Google has started rolling out a brand-new algorithm update designed to win the battle with spam, in all its forms. On May 20th, Matt Cutts announced on Twitter that Google is ready to launch its Panda 4.0 update: Most likely, to reinforce its efforts to ensure a superior web experience for all users while fighting the creation and promotion of low-quality, meaningless content. As a matter of fact, according to The Moz Blog, Google actually gave the green light to 2 updates: Payday Loan 2.0. (which addresses “very spammy queries”) and Panda 4.0. Meet the Winners and the Losers of Panda 4.0 Some of the biggest players on digital markets have already been hit hard by this new update that impacted their website traffic: Search Engine Journal reveals that ask.com, ebay.com and biography.com are only 3 of the giant well-known websites that witnessed a drastic traffic reduction of over 33%. Yikes! Panda 4.0 also announced a few lucky winners that managed to display substantial traffic gains, including emedicinehealth.com, medterms.com and zimbio.com (revealing an astonishing 500% traffic increase!) Can you guess what separates the winning side from the sore losers? Content appears to be the game-changer. At this point, these numbers are difficult to interpret. However, most of the players that were brought to their knees by Panda 4.0 promoted duplicate or syndicated content, so this may be one of the causes of their recent failure. However, taking into account that the new update is not entirely rolled out, we can still expect to witness many more ranking changes. Should We Feel Intimidated by the New Panda 4.0 Algorithm Update? Each and every single time Google is getting ready to throw unscrupulous spammers to the lions (or to the cranky Pandas, in this case) without giving us a heads-up, we can’t help but wonder: how it this change going to impact websites and everyday people who depend on a regular content flow to grow and run their online businesses? At this point, according to Search Engine Land, Google is now affirming that Panda 4.0 affects 7.5% of all English-language queries, while the Payday Loan update influences approximately 0.2% of the overall number of English searches. There is a great deal of speculation regarding the overall impact of this new algorithm update and the supplementary measures of precaution that webmasters would be forced to take to avoid search engine penalties and stay friends with Google. Could this brand new wind of change reflect Google’s intention to throw a rope to small business owners who are struggling to make a name for themselves and improve their bottom line by simply boosting their premium content creation efforts? Could We Be Dealing with a Less Aggressive Panda This Time? During the Search Marketing Expo, Matt Cutts announced that Google’s search team is currently working on a new Panda update that may be cataloged by many people as “softer”. Furthermore, according to Search Engine Land, Cutts has explained that this update is specifically designed to lend a helping hand to small-scale businesses, by enabling their websites to perform better in search results. Could the 4.0 update represent the less aggressive approach to helping small company owners that Cutts was talking about not too long ago? It’s still too early to jump to conclusions. Small business owners may expect an increased level of visibility in local search results, which would represent a great advantage. After all, unlike large corporations that set bigger goals and have the means required to reach a broad audience, most small companies choose to promote their business and market their goods locally, because most of their clients are recruited from the local sphere. In this particular content, one question comes to mind: would Google actually be willing to soften its Panda update? Sure, why not? Chances are that Google has actually embraced this approach, especially since it already counts on a solid precedent: the softer version of the Panda algorithm rolled out in July 2013 (one of our infographics explores the timeline history of SEO and Google’s most feared algorithm update). All in all, even though we still don’t have all the details required to get the bigger picture when it comes to evaluating the fresh Panda 4.0 update, it seems that small businesses could actually benefit from this softer version allowing them to improve their online visibility. Many webmasters probably feel that they are wandering in the dark and are most likely asking themselves the following question: how do we have to act from now on to cope with this change and adapt to new challenges? Better Content Will Always Represent the Key to Success There is only one good answer to this question: by investing more time, money and energy in original, reader-oriented, properly optimized content pieces that have nothing to do with spammy, black-hat SEO practices and any other attempts to deceive search engines. As long as you play by the book and realize that premium content created to provide value to your readers is the solid foundation of any successful strategy, you will manage to protect your business against the powerful wind of change without worrying that Google’s never-ending series of changes could nuke your company and burry it 6 feet under the ground. Should SEO Experts Stop Trying to Make the Pig Fly? These 2 new algorithm updates have created quite a stir in the SEO community. After all, many businesses that got hit by Panda never managed to recover, so the fact that changes implemented by Google make most webmasters tremble in terror is perfectly understandable. But does this mean that this crazy zoo counting an angry Panda, Penguin and Payday Loan should make SEO experts quit their jobs and run away with the circus? Absolutely not! According to Bruce Clay, the president and owner of Bruce Clay Inc., (cited by Search Engine Journal), great … Read more

10 SEO Writing Mistakes That Will Hurt Your Rankings

December 31, 2020May 26, 2014 by Adam Oakley

These days, webmasters have to invest a considerable amount of time, money and energy in the right optimization tactics to stay in Google’s good graces, including correct SEO writing. If this is your case, good news – we’ve got some useful information for you to share in this blog. The bad news is that you cannot count on a one-size-fits all search engine optimization (SEO) plan allowing you to improve their rankings. Don’t be discouraged though. The good news is that practice does make perfect in this case, without too much blood, sweat and tears. What Can Hurt Your SEO Writing Rankings Once you agree to play by the book and ditch black hat SEO tactics in SEO writing and all SEO you do, you can easily avoid some of the most common optimization pitfalls. Here are 10 major mistakes that could hurt your rankings and get your website in serious trouble, forcing you to crack open your piggybank to correct your wrongdoings. 1) Posting Duplicate Content on Your Website. Duplicate SEO writing will never do you any favors. As tempting as it may seem to save some time and money by stealing someone else’s intellectual property, don’t go down this road. Duplicate content is dangerous for a number of reasons: It exposes you to major penalties from search engines. In case you didn’t know Penguin 2.0, Google’s much-feared algorithm change was rolled out to target duplicate content, identify unethical SEO tactics and remove offending websites. It disappoints your readers, making them land on your competitors’ websites. Posting duplicate content is like telling your audience how awesome your main rivals are. Your competitors will most likely send you flowers for this. Just take a minute to think about it: what does duplicate content say about you, your company, or your aspirations, vision and purpose in business? Absolutely nothing! This is precisely why instead of copy pasting meaningless, unoriginal web content, webmasters should turn to personalized, compelling, relevant, user-oriented web writing that ensures a flawless user experience and also helps the website rank higher in search engine results. 2) Relying on Keyword Stuffing. Keyword stuffing is so yesterday. None of the competitive players in your niche are doing it anymore, so why would you? Long gone are the days when you could stuff your texts with dozens of keywords and get away with it. At this point, according to Search Engine Journal, first-class, Google-friendly web writing should display a perfect balance between everyday language and keyword usage. So this leads us to a very pressing question: how much is too much, when it comes to keywords? Unfortunately, there is no mathematical formula that you can apply to get a precise answer to this question. The experts at Moz have weighed in to say the keyword density would be a waste of time. Here’s a simple solution for you: read your text aloud: if it doesn’t sound right, then it probably isn’t. If what you are reading makes sense and flows naturally, chances are that Google will also appreciate your optimization efforts. When in doubt, you can always use one of the many keyword density analyzer tools available online to assess the quality of your writing. 3) Posting or Approving Spam Comments. Some business owners prefer to take the easy way out when it comes to implementing on-page and off-page optimization tactics. The road to SEO writing hell is often paved with good intentions and ignorance. Those who pay third-parties a certain amount of money to spam different websites by posting comments accompanied by a link to their webpage seldom attain their end goal. This technique is very annoying and less effective than you may be inclined to think. It will inevitably affect your brand, making you seem desperate. We all have to start somewhere, but do you really think that multimillion dollar companies managed to reach their target by posting spam comments on other people’s websites? If the recipe for success would be so simple and so transparent, everybody would be following it to get rich and famous overnight. Unfortunately, this is not how it works. Also, according to Entrepreneur, you have to be very careful when it comes to approving comments posted on your website or blog. Keep only the ones that provide real value to your customers and ditch the rest. This is the safest method to protect your image, discourage spammy SEO writing practices employed by others and show the uttermost respect for your readers. If you want to safeguard your website from spam comments that may compromise your reputation, just follow Google’s set of guidelines. 4) Investing in Irrelevant, Low-Quality Content. Google strives to ensure a more than satisfactory navigation experience for all Internet users. This means that it values high-quality content and compels webmasters to improve web writing that doesn’t meet its standards. If you’re willing to cut corners when it comes to crafting new content, you may want to reconsider, since Google is not the biggest fan of quality compromises. Before writing a new blog post or on-site content, make sure you: Have an in-depth knowledge of the topic that you plan to expand on Conduct a keyword analysis to discover the most popular queries around which you will build your content Are familiar with the particularities of your niche, business and audience and can actually respond to your visitors’ needs and demands. 5) Not Investing in Content (At All!). Sometimes,lack of drive can be much more dangerous than a misguided action. The history of your company is not going to write itself. If you can agree upon this fact, then you can also reach the conclusion that lack of content won’t say too much about who you really are and where you’re heading. Your visitors are craving for premium, informative, problem-solving content; so what exactly are you doing at this point to address their needs and demands? Well-focused, reader-oriented content gives your audience a good reason to listen to what you have to … Read more

What’s All The Hype About G’s New +Post Ads?

December 31, 2020May 9, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Image credit: Google+ Brands The sky is the limit when it comes to analyzing all the new tools and channels that are launched on the market on a regular basis to make things a whole lot easier for today’s marketers. Google+ has recently given us a new reason to get excited. Earlier this month, Google+ has announced that its innovative +Post Ads will become available to big brands counting on Google+ pages with more than 1 million followers. Should this new opportunity be received with great enthusiasm by marketers and deep-pocketed clients or is it just a new method to throw some solid cash down the drain? Let’s find out. What Are These New +Post Ads and Why Do They Matter? Google+ is currently listed as one of the 5th largest, most influential social media platforms of this moment. Apparently, for Google this is not good enough. However, on ever-changing online markets there is always room for improvements and Google is fully aware of this fact. Its new +Post Ads is an extremely valuable tool for big brands that want to improve their online presence, broaden their horizons, expand their reach or simply consolidate their position in their niche. Basically, +Post Ads gives you the chance to promote any kind of post that you could publish on your Google+ brand page in front of a larger audience, by relying on third-party websites that broadcast your marketing message. Google+ Takes the Art of Content Sharing to a Whole New Level Of course, these partnerships work to your best advantage and boost your online visibility. By promoting your content on premium sources of information, you instantly draw attention to your brand and the announcement that you plan to make public. Whether you are bragging about your new line of products, a brand-new service or a hot discount campaign designed to improve customer loyalty, +Post Ads will enable you to amplify your most engaging content that a larger audience may be interested in. The best part is that this program gives you the chance to decide where you actually want to distribute your messages. According to Forbes, marketers who will use the +Post Ads program to display their ad will be able to control the places where their posts will be shown. …Can It Get Better? How much better can it get? Actually, things get a little more interesting. You should also know that all the shared posts are 100% interactive. This means that visitors who land on the third-party website that is showing your ad can actually post a common right on the article hosted by your collaborator. If and when readers like your post and resonate with it, they can share it via their very own Google+ accounts. Some of the biggest brands that we all know and love, like Toyota for instance, have already tested +Post Ads and seem to be pleased with the end results. Clearly, this is a major marketing opportunity that you shouldn’t miss out on. Could Post Ads Make You Throw Money Out the Window? All in all, one question still remains unanswered: could +Post Ads be your best friend or your most feared foe? Truth be told, this new program could burn holes in your pockets, if you don’t know how to use it wisely. Content is king, and proper distribution is its powerful queen. But it goes without saying that poor content won’t get you very far. It may land in all the right places, but if it doesn’t make your clients laugh, giggle, sigh, rub their hands together in anticipation and swipe their credit cards, your content is a mere waste of money and no distribution strategies could change this fact.

SEO for Google Plus: How to Optimize Your G+ Profile

January 1, 2021May 8, 2014 by Adam Oakley

If you want to explore the full potential of some of the most influential social media platforms, you cannot afford to ignore G+ (Google Plus), with its ever-growing popularity or its plentitude of amazing marketing opportunities. Facebook and Twitter may be trending these days, but keep in mind that they aren’t the only channels that you should focus on when it comes to creating and applying a successful set of off-page SEO strategies. Why Use G+? As a matter of fact, according to a Moz blog on how to use Google+ for SEO, Facebook and Twitter actually stop Google from accessing and utilizing a great percentage of their data. On the other hand, G+ doesn’t keep any secrets. This is only one good reason why you should work around the clock to boost your Google Plus optimization efforts as soon as possible. How to Make the Most of Google Plus in Less than 10 Minutes Obviously, workingaround the clock is a metaphor. According to the SEO experts from Moz, you don’t need to invest more than 10 minutes in your Google Plus optimization strategies on a daily basis. The key is to create healthy, productive habits that could soon become a part of your daily routine. In a matter of a few minutes you can: a) add a +1 button to your website, to encourage your visitors to recommend your posts on Google Search, while also distributing it on Google Plus. The good news is that the +1 button is 100% customizable, so you can change the load technique and the size of the button and make it meet your actual needs. b) comment, re-share and engage c) circle amazing people who share similar interest d) make it easier for influential individuals to circle you e) start a hangout or create an event Creating a Winning Strategy for Google Plus in 5 Easy Steps 1) Optimize Your Profile and Profit from Limitless Editing Power. Start by optimizing your Google Plus profile. This means that you have to complete all fields (profile image, website URL, business details and so on). All in all, your profile should be a mirror of your interests, capabilities, goals, vision, mission and purpose in business. Getting your Google Plus page verified by the mighty Google also helps, since it allows you to build credibility and trust. You should know that Google Plus allows you to erase and rewind. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, this platform offers you the chance to profit from limitless editing power. Therefore, you can go back to your old posts and fully edit them, anytime, anywhere. 2) Make Sure Your G Plus Title Tags Are Optimized. The very first sentence of your G plus posts becomes a part of your title tag; therefore it can impact your rankings and maximize your click-through rates. Opt for the most relevant keywords and note that the title is the first thing that people analyze before reading your post. Your title tags should be short (around 65-75 characters), compelling and concise. 3) Get in Touch with Influencers. Be sociable and always give people something to talk about. Make new connections. Add new people to your circle; ask other users to add you to their circle, share a post with a few influencers, tag them in a photo, mention them in posts, start meaningful conversations, invite them to an event and so on; just make sure you don’t cross the line. Strangers who are a tad too friendly on Google Plus are often cataloged as spammers and get banned till the end of times. 4) Count on a Killer Author Pic. Cyrus Shepard from Moz has conducted an experiment with his Google Plus profile pic. The results were amazing and predictable to some extent: in a world in which looks are extremely important, your profile pic says a lot about you and your competencies. A perfect (real), professional-looking picture of yourself taken in a very flattering light can boost your website traffic. 5) Stay Active. Whatever you do, do something. Inactivity is one of the capital sins when it comes to social media marketing strategies. You don’t want to be one of the many inactive users that have a Google Plus account, but refuse to put it to good use for one reason or another. Give your readers at least one good reason to use the 1 button. According to Business2Community, you can accomplish this goal by simply: Posting quality content on a regular basis Creating and updating content based on the needs, interests and expectations of your audience Connecting Google Plus to your website and all your social extensions Last, but definitely not least, don’t forget to connect your web content to your Google Plus profile via Google Authorship. This is the simplest method to reaffirm your authority, increase your influence and enable readers to identify your content in no time.

Keyword Optimization: 5 Do’s and Don’ts to Follow to Score SERP Rankings

August 25, 2022April 30, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Keyword optimization isn’t as technical as you may think. It’s not about counting keywords and doing math equations. Instead, excellent keyword SEO involves: Inserting keywords using natural language where it counts … That’s it! In fact, as long as you strategically place your focus keyword/secondary keyword in the right spots, you can forget about keywords altogether as you write. Using this strategy has helped my own content nab top rankings in Google, including the #1 position. Sound good? I thought so. Let’s examine the nitty-gritty do’s and don’ts of keyword placement and SEO to help guide you to SERP success. 5 Do’s and Don’ts to Improve Your Keyword Optimization 1. Don’t Focus on Keyword Density Keyword density refers to how often your keyword(s) appear within your content piece. To figure out the keyword density of a piece of content, you count how many times the focus keyword shows up and divide that figure by the total number of words. However, you don’t have to understand how this works, because keyword density is an outdated concept. It doesn’t matter. You do NOT have to count keywords when writing for SEO. Google and other search engines are smarter now than 10 years ago (when KD was a big deal). They’re no longer looking for instances of a keyword in your content – instead, they’re looking for context and relevancy, and matching the user’s search intent. The only time you need to worry about keyword density is if you’re using your keyword(s) too many times. That’s called keyword stuffing. That’s spam. So, what should you do, instead? 2. DO Pay Attention to Keyword Placement for SEO Content Optimization Instead of inserting your keyword(s) wherever you can, focus on strategic keyword placement. Use your keywords in the right places, using natural language, and your content is more likely to get ranked. Search engines look at how keywords are used on your page. The algorithms use these clues to figure out what your page is about. If your keywords appear in key places, that sends a signal to search engines, i.e., “Hey! This page is about [insert your focus keyword here]!” These are the key spots to insert your keywords so search engines take note: The H1 (the headline/title of your content) H2s (the main subheaders) H3s (sub-subheaders) Once in the intro/first paragraph Once in the conclusion/last paragraph Sprinkled throughout the text (used naturally) These key placements apply to your focus keyword as well as any related or synonymous keywords. For an example of correct keyword placement in a blog that’s ranking right now, look at EW’s own post, “How to Outsource Your Content Writing (Successfully).” The keyword we wanted to rank for was “outsourcing content writing.” As you can see, we’re currently ranking #1 on Google for this keyword (after the paid search listings). This is why: A. The focus keyword appears in the H1, in various H2s throughout the blog, and within the introduction. B. Related keywords are sprinkled throughout, and are used in some H2s. C. The concluding paragraph has a keyword-optimized H2 and contains the focus keyword, plus a related term. D. All of the keywords are inserted in the text naturally, effortlessly, and with variations as needed for correct grammar. All of these strategic keyword placements add up to blaring signals for Google and other search engines to latch onto – they can’t ignore these signals! Once the keywords are in place, if the content quality is high, and if the piece is relevant to the user, Google will rank it highly. That’s exactly what happened here. Another keyword we rank for using the same strategic keyword placements: “blogging statistics.” This is the post on Google, currently in the #3 position: To help you get a big-picture view of what optimized keyword placement looks like, check out this zoomed-out screenshot of the blog post in question, “Why Blog? 52 Incredible Blogging Statistics to Inspire You.” In addition to using the focus keyword, “blogging statistics,” in the major spots, we also have instances of related keywords in key areas, like “results from blogging,” “blogging online marketing,” and “blogging commitment.” We did NOT count how many times we used the keywords, but rather used them when it felt natural, with grammar variations to keep the text readable. THAT is a major part of why this blog ranks so well right now. 3. Don’t Ignore Less Obvious Keyword Opportunities SEO content optimization isn’t only about the textual content. It’s also about details the user can’t necessarily see on the page, but you can tweak on the back-end. Don’t miss these keyword opportunities. A. Meta Titles and Descriptions To boost your SEO, your metas should be optimized for all your content pieces. The meta title is an obvious one (A.K.A. your headline or H1), but don’t forget to add your focus keyword to the meta description, too. To learn how to write and add optimized metas to your blog posts, check out our guide on blog optimization. B. URLs Yep, the URLs for all your content can be keyword-optimized. Blogs each have their own page/URL, so this is especially relevant for that type of content. To make them user and search engine-friendly, include only the most important words and separate with hyphens, i.e.: “https://yourwebsite.com/focus-keyword-or-phrase-here” For example, this is the URL for our post where the focus keyword is “blog optimization”: Imagine if the URL for this blog looked like this: “https://staging.expresswriters.com/blog/asdjklei/1282398/hse248ha-optimization-12” That looks scary for a user coming fresh to your site. (Are they on the right page? What are you trying to load onto their computer??) Search engines don’t like it, either. A short, clean, descriptive URL is best-practice in both cases. C. Image Alt Text One final place where you can use keywords: image alt text. Alt text is an attribute within the code for displaying an image in your content. It tells the web browser what to display if the image can’t load. This can be an opportunity to use … Read more

8 Reasons Why Content is the Most Crucial Element of SEO Today

January 1, 2021April 22, 2014 by Adam Oakley

If you are in the SEO business or in case you are thinking about it, there is one major rule you will have to keep in mind: the search engines don’t care about companies; they only rank content. It doesn’t matter how great your company is if you can’t offer the readers high quality content. The main purpose of search engines (including Google) is to offer their users the best experience possible. When a user searches the answer to a question, the more details the answer has, the more useful it is for the user. As a result relevant and high quality content will have a better ranking in the search results. All this determines your goal in content creation: publishing marketable, useful and relevant information. This will boost your ratings and it will ensure that your SEO strategy will have long-term effects. So here is why content is the key element of SEO: 1. People Are Interested in What You Have to Say According to Brafton.com 52% of people made purchase decisions based on what they read on blogs and 57% of the marketers gained new customers because of their content. 42% of people look for articles and blogs about the products that they wish to purchase and 60% of the marketers claim that content helps them make better decisions. 61% of the customers say that they are likely to purchase the products of a company that offers custom content. All this should show you how important your content really is. Now that you know your content makes all the difference, what could you do to improve it for higher SEO ranks and more traffic? 2. Give the Consumers What They Need First of all, you have to know what your target audience is. Secondly, you need to know what they want and what information is relevant to them. If you don’t, you will waste time and energy offering solutions to problems that don’t exist. Once you know what the target audience wants, make sure that the content you offer is really helpful. Think of the most common questions and offer answers. This way you will become the source of knowledge to the readers. While the other people will be too busy with self-marketing, you will give people exactly what they need which is the best self-marketing strategy ever. 3. Just Give Yourself Regardless of the kind of content you are thinking about, you can be sure that there are hundreds of people who thought of it before you woke up this morning. This is why you will have to find ways to make your content stand out; find ways to present your content in a way that has never been used before. If your content is similar to the others’, you will just need to add value to it. There are many different ways to make your content stand out, such as adding videos, infographics, images, or anything else that would make it unique. 4. Boredom Is the Death of SEO You may be working in a field that is boring or dry, but you can be sure that they are always ways to add a fun and creative spin to it, even if you are in the field of toilet seats. One of the most important aspects that you will have to be thinking about is branding, according to Seth Godin. Based on information from brafton.com, half of the users are more likely to visit a page if it appears several times among the search engine results. For this you will need a diversified content strategy. It means that you should have blogs, webpages, images, videos, whitepapers, social snippets, infographics, and anything else you could think of. All this will result in people being engaged with your brand. You will be able to fill the content gaps and you will maximize the benefits of all your content. 5. Content Reduced to Keywords When you’re searching for something with the help of search engines, you have to type in keywords. These are the same keywords that the users type in to find your content. Since you know what your target group wants, you should have a pretty good idea of what keywords they might use to reach the desired content. All these keywords must be a part of your pages. This way in the moment the user hits enter, your content will be first on the list of results. 6. Can Keywords Reduce Your Ranking? In order to have high ranks on the search engine results, there is need for your content to contain keywords. So, why wouldn’t you include all the keywords that you can think about? The truth is this is a very bad strategy. Keyword stuffing isn’t the solution to your problem. If you have too many keywords, the content will lose its purpose and it won’t be useful to the readers. This is why there is a keyword density accepted by common sense. If your web content keyword density is higher, it will hurt your ranking. On the other hand, if you don’t have keywords, it will become very difficult to attract traffic to your content. 7. Is Your Content Engaging? If you have high quality content, you will be able to engage the readers and this is something that the search engines also measure. The more time readers spend on your site, the better the rankings will be. If you don’t have high quality content, the readers will simply bounce back to the search results and, again, this will hurt your ranking. 8. Be “Socially” Involved You can see social media everywhere you look. If you get shares, likes, tweets, or any other kind of social feedback, it means that you have high quality content and this is something that the search engines will appreciate as well. All in all, no matter what kind of feedback you’re striving for, it all comes back to your content and whether or not your readers … Read more

5 Ways to Get More Success in Web Traffic Without Building Paid Links

January 1, 2021April 15, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Who’s honestly not afraid of the Penguin? In 2012, Google decided to release one of the most terrifying algorithm updates that makes us watch our backs every single time we post or update content on our website. The Penguin, Google’s radical algorithm change targeted websites that featured overly optimized anchor texts stuffed with keywords, dubious link profiles and shady link building strategies. All in all, the not so cute Penguin made us change our perception of endorsement. Penguin – The Algorithm Update That Makes Us Look at Endorsement from a Different Perspective In online environments, we are actually permitted and sometimes even encouraged to pay a popular celeb to promote our products on his/her social media channels, but we aren’t allowed to beg, pray or pay for links coming from other sources. Now does this make any sense? It does, actually. Google has always been striving to ensure a flawless web experience for all Internet users. According to Search Engine Watch, this is the main reason why it does everything in its power to sniff, signal and ban any kind of black hat strategy rolled out by webmasters whose sole purpose is to manipulate search engine results to their best advantage. To begin with, Google scared the SEO out of us with its Penguin algorithm update designed and implemented to penalize websites that promoted low-quality content. These websites did not do any favors to readers looking for quality information; they just represented a cheap and convenient moneymaking machine for most business owners who did not plan to optimize their content strategies anytime soon. Fortunately, the mighty Penguin made them reconsider. Shortly after Penguin buried many webmasters 6 feet under the ground, Google decided to focus its entire attention of manipulative, unnatural inbound links. According to Moz, the types of inbound links that can ruin your friendship with Google can be separated into different categories: Paid links Links with overly optimized anchor texts Links coming from low-quality webpages Links coming from sources that are not relevant to your business Keyword stuffed links 3 Reasons Why Paid Links Are the Forbidden Fruit That Should Be Left in the Tree If you don’t want to upset Google, it is highly recommended to invest time, money and energy in your content strategy, rather than trying to come up with a counterproductive tactic based on paid links. You may be wondering: why are paid links bad in the first place? Google doesn’t like them much for a number of reasons: 1) Paid Links Are a Form of Cheating. Basically, when you buy links, you pay to help your own page rank higher in search engine results. In other words, you defy Google’s rules and guidelines and put a certain amount of money on the table to see your website on page 1 in Google. Ultimately, you get bonus points from search engines that will consider you a relevant, popular, trustworthy source even if this is not the case. 2) Your Practice Stops Search Engines from Delivering Relevant Results. If all people were to pay to see their website occupy a privileged position in search engine results, how could Google, Bing and Yahoo manage to display relevant, quality results that users are actually interested in finding? 3) Bad Linking Strategies Don’t Help Your Readers. On the contrary, paid links that have no value whatsoever annoy and bore your readers to death, so this is one extra reason why you should avoid them. 5 Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic without Relying on Paid Links Instead of investing your resources in deceptive optimization tactics, try to stay in Google’s good graces and increase your website traffic rapidly and risk-free. Here are 5 simple ways to attain your goal without jeopardizing your relationship with Google: 1) Maximize the Satisfaction of Your Readers. Moz points out that Google may measure satisfaction every single time users click on a certain page. So the question is this: does your website have what it takes to keep your readers on your side for the longest period of time? If the answer is no, find out what you have been doing wrong this whole time and discover the simplest method to correct your mishap. Update you content, add calls to action, change you tone/writing style, cultivate the feedback of your readers and make sure the topics that you expand one actually address their needs, demands and concerns. Also, don’t neglect social media marketing opportunities. Improve your social media presence the easy way. Create and publish premium web content enabling you to interact with your fans and followers on some of the most important social media platforms. 2) Proper Video Optimization. A picture is worth a thousand words, but since the online environments have become increasingly competitive, you’ll need more than a great pic to convince users to click on your website. In this case, a video snippet could serve your best interest by stimulating the curiosity of your readers and proving that you are a first-class source of information that is counting on killer multimedia content to stay relevant. 3) Google Authorship (Plus an Awesome Photo of Yourself). Many webmasters are dealing with the same problem: they don’t know that online businesses have to establish real relationships with members of their targeted audience. Since not all the info available online is 100% accurate, users must find a way to separate quality content from written trash. To simplify their process, they take a closer look at the original source. Who is the mighty content creator? You are! In this case, highlight your authority and build credibility and trust by counting on Google Authorship. This way, a short, relevant description and a great photo of yourself will be listed at the beginning of you articles. While you’re going down this road, make sure you rely on a few basic elements guaranteeing your success: Opt for a picture revealing a real face, not a cartoon character Go for high-contrast hues that … Read more

Google’s Sneaky Little Redesigns (While We All Were Sleeping)

December 31, 2020April 9, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Google thinks that we are the kind of people who love surprises. We are not. At least when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we love certainties that allow us to create and apply winning website optimization strategies. Google doesn’t seem to care about this, since it constantly bombards us with algorithm updates and an ever-growing number of changes that usually take us by surprise and make us rethink or rebuild our SEO plans from scratch. Interpreting Google’s New Makeover At this point, all webmasters should focus their attention on Google’s sneaky redesign ideas that have recently been put into practice, probably while we were enjoying our beauty sleep. All in all, it seems that these changes have been made to boost consistency in design, create a cleaner look and perfect the multi-device navigation experience. Here’s are the main alterations that impact both SERPs formats and AdWords blocks. 1) Search Results. Obviously, if you run an online business and your website is indexed by Google, you care about the way in which your webpage appears in search engine results. No, your eyes are not playing a trick on you and yes, Google does look a bit different. Here are the main modifications that should catch your eye: first of all, the new version brings a bigger, much more visible title font. At the same time, Google has decided to ditch the underlining and make the URL source just a bit smaller, without changing the mini links or the snippet. The larger title font may make it easier for your visitors to find you, but this alteration has another implication that you may want to factor in: a bigger title font could reduce the size of some title tags and influence your conversion rates. According to Moz, this means that in the future you may be forced to create smaller title tags, at least for some of your most important pages. Furthermore, there is another important element that captures our attention: a horizontal divider placed at the bottom of the search result. This divider separates search engine results and makes it easier for visitors to find the sources of info that they would like to check out, regardless of the type of devices that they are using to surf the Internet. 2) AdWords. Google has also implemented a few basic changes, in an attempt to come up with a new AdWords format. Here we spot the main key differences listed above: the oversized title fonts, the horizontal divider and the non-underlined titles. But there are other changes that have taken us by surprise. First of all, the pinkish background and the “ads related to” feature are no longer a part of the picture. A yellowish, very noticeable [Ad] box is strategically placed in front of every single ad. The right-hand side column of the Adwords block displays fewer, less dramatic changes, which include just one [Ad] box for the entire right column, more vertical space and bigger titles. Should We Work Against the Game-Changer or Embrace the Change? So the question on everybody’s lips is this: should we feel intimidated by these sudden changes that caught us off-guard? In November, Moz anticipated the fact that Google will switch to a card-like design, meant to ensure an ideal web experience for all Internet users. As mobile and tablets become increasingly popular and new types of gadgets, like Google Glass could soon change the way in which we navigate online, Google is going for much more versatile SERPs that could be easily mixed and matched to provide different combinations that are much more relevant to various search devices and situations. The horizontal divider used to separate search engine results may not represent a major change for now, but it can be interpreted as a first modification made by Google in an attempt to reorganize the old SERPs that we know and love into units that could be reorganized and displayed in different ways. It doesn’t really matter if we like the new redesign ideas or not. We have no saying in this. It’s important to know that these changes have recently been confirmed by Jon Wiley, Google’s top search designer and that they may be a tiny part of a much bigger plan. In this context, it is important to find out how these alterations could impact your website’s visibility and profitability and act accordingly. Don’t hate the game-changer; hate your potential lack of initiative that could jeopardize your efforts to stay in the game.

The 25th Anniversary of the Web: Key Highlights

January 1, 2021March 18, 2014 by Adam Oakley

It’s hard to imagine what a web-less world would look like. Just like most of us probably find it quite difficult to picture life without electricity, cars, and of course (smart) phones. Looking back, you could say that history has a way of allowing us to take a leap by coming up with something big every century. It’s the light bulb in the 19th, and everything else that we’ve accomplished through electricity. The automobile, and then air travel in the 20th. As for the 21st century- its first two decades , at least- it’s the web and the digital world it made possible. Yes, the web has come of age. On March 12th, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the web. Okay, we have this great and powerful tool. Do we make the most of it? Can more people benefit from it? How can the web become truly global? How can it be more useful and more secure? In this USNews.com piece, its inventor, Tim Berners-Lee talked about the significance of this anniversary. The 25th Anniversary of the Web: Looking Back No one can argue that the 25th anniversary of the web is a milestone. It’s a time when you look back to see what happened during this quarter of a century, and ahead, toward what might come next. Here are some key highlights. The Birth of the World Wide Web 1989 is not only the year when the Berlin wall fell, putting an end to the Cold War, and opening the gateway to democracy throughout Eastern Europe, but also the year when the idea that would make the democracy of information possible was born. That’s right, we’re speaking about the web. In the first spring month of that year, Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal with what was to become the blueprint of the web to his boss at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). Although this physics lab in Geneva, Switzerland, could not support software projects, Tim Berners-Lee was allowed to work on his idea, which he did, creating what today we know as the world wide web. The Advent of Commercial Internet Web Landmarks in the 1990s. A Basic Timeline 1990: The Web Goes Public. 1991: WorldWideWeb After his proposal in 1989, Tim Berners-Lee got down to work and came up with the world’s first browser. Originally dubbed WorldWideWeb, it was later renamed Nexus. 1992: Internet Surfing The terms “surfing the Internet” and “net surfing” are first used. 1993: Mosaic This was the first cross platform browser, and the first browser with a graphic interface. Easy to install and use, it fueled the exponential development of the Internet in the early 1990s. 1994: Netscape Navigator Mosaic turned into Netscape Navigator which was the first commercial browser. It dominated the browser scene in the early 1990s, until it was displaced by Internet Explorer. 1995: E-Commerce The mid nineties witnessed beginnings of e-shopping which was to change the way we buy and sell things. From amazon.com selling its first book online in 1995 to sales totaling over 1 trillion dollars in 2012, e-commerce has become instrumental for business success. 1997: Google Google.com becomes a registered domain. From then on, search engines and browsing change for good. 1995-2000: The Dot-Com Boom and the Dot-Com Bubble. SEO According to Wikipedia, the term “search engine optimization” was first used in 1997. Search engine optimization, that aimed to increase website ranking in search engines, came a long way since its inception days. Along the way, in the battle for visibility, webmasters and website owners used black hat strategies, such as link farming and spammy content to increase ranking. Now, recent Google updates such as Penguin and Panda, made it clear that this is not the game to play if you want to thrive online. Instead, organic search engine optimization and white hat SEO practices are not only encouraged, but a must. According to moz.com, Google refreshes its search algorithm about five to six hundred times every year. In SEO terms, 2011- 2013 are perhaps the most important years in web history so far. Google released several updates that marked a radical shift in search engine optimization practices during the past two years. Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird and several other updates are reshaping the way we relate to the web and the meaning of online presence, for both businesses and users. To get a more accurate idea about the impact of Google updates, check the above mentioned article on moz.com where you’ll find a detailed timeline. It’s enough to mention here only three of the most relevant updates released by Google starting with 2011. Google Panda Fist released in February 2011, Panda targeted ‘low quality’ websites, penalizing counterfeit links and duplicate, spammy content. Google Penguin Released in April 2012, it declared a war against black hat SEO tactics, making it clear that link schemes were no longer tolerated to promote search engine ranking. Hummingbird Update For its 15th anniversary, in September 2013, Google launched a new algorithm update. It was called Hummingbird and it aimed to make search more conversational. What’s the effect of the updates released by Google in recent years? What’s their impact on SEO strategy? What does it mean for your web presence? Where is the web headed? Read on for some answers. Google’s Algorithm Changes and SEO Having a solid SEO strategy is no longer optional. It is mandatory for for business success. A well crafted SEO strategy makes the difference between being visible and being swamped in the online clutter. From No Man’s Land to Integrated Architecture Today, the cornerstones of an effective SEO strategy and successful web presence are original content, white hat link building and social media. What does this mean? Creating Value and Building Authority Through Organic SEO and Original Content Onsite content is paramount to build credibility online and ultimately convert. Content and SEO work in tandem because the role of good SEO is to structure, organize, and optimize the content on your pages. The … Read more