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Friday, 7 November 2014
Tips for On-Page and Off-Page SEO
The competitive world of the Internet creates a need for leverage for smaller businesses that wish to compete with larger ones. The smaller businesses will never catch up to the large companies marketing budgets, so how can they really compete? One way, SEO, on-page and off-page optimization that offers authority, brand building, traffic, and of course, profits. In 2014, the world of SEO shifted dramatically with all of the Google updates and algorithm changes, so what you may have once knew, today means very little.
Start with Keyword Analysis
Keywords are still part of the SEO world, that has not changed, but how they are used has changed. So, before getting too involved in what to do with the keywords on your page, you need to first find out what ones are best to use.
Google Planner
Google Planner is a free tool that offers help to locate keywords that match your needs. It displays the keywords search volume, and offers keyword ideas based on your initial search. The tool provides basic information that is required to make an educated decision on keyword usage.
High Search Volume with Low Competition – This is your ideal keyword scenario. Finding this combination is not easy, but when you do, the pay offs can be huge. Larger businesses in your industry have most likely cornered the market on the main keyword you have been using, and as said before, you are never going to catch up to their marketing budget, so stop competing for that word. Find one that is less competitive, but that still offers a high search volume. You can still use the main keyword that is in high-demand; just do not focus your campaign around it.
Long Tail Keywords – Google is all about answering questions these days, so use long tail keywords that ask, or answer a question.
On-Page Optimization Tips
Once you have your keywords sorted out, it is time to start building and optimizing your website. Google does not allow you to simply stuff your page with keywords for rankings anymore; you are expected to be an authority, so prove you are one!
Write to Read, Not to Rank!
Whenever you write an article, create text for a landing page, or even post a social blurb, make sure it is something that is worth reading. Google requires that ALL content be informative, unique, and useful. Having your website stuffed with useless keyword-stuffed content is about as effective as a chicken trying to fly South! It is more important that your content be interesting and descriptive, than it is for it to contain a keyword or keyword phrase. That may sound counter-productive to old school SEO buffs, but with the changes Google has made, that is exactly what is required!
All content that is created for your website MUST be 100% original. Duplicate content will destroy your reputation, not only with your followers, but with Google as well. The title of the article or blog you post should be catchy, but still relate to the information within the article. If the reader clicks on a title “Lose Weight Eating Chocolate”, and they start reading about how to lose weight by eating salads and fruit, they are not only going to leave the page, they are going to leave with distrust about your site, who you are, and what you have to say. So, if you promise weight loss with chocolate in your title, your article better deliver just that!
Content Title Quick Tips:
Start with Keyword Analysis
Keywords are still part of the SEO world, that has not changed, but how they are used has changed. So, before getting too involved in what to do with the keywords on your page, you need to first find out what ones are best to use.
Google Planner
Google Planner is a free tool that offers help to locate keywords that match your needs. It displays the keywords search volume, and offers keyword ideas based on your initial search. The tool provides basic information that is required to make an educated decision on keyword usage.
High Search Volume with Low Competition – This is your ideal keyword scenario. Finding this combination is not easy, but when you do, the pay offs can be huge. Larger businesses in your industry have most likely cornered the market on the main keyword you have been using, and as said before, you are never going to catch up to their marketing budget, so stop competing for that word. Find one that is less competitive, but that still offers a high search volume. You can still use the main keyword that is in high-demand; just do not focus your campaign around it.
Long Tail Keywords – Google is all about answering questions these days, so use long tail keywords that ask, or answer a question.
On-Page Optimization Tips
Once you have your keywords sorted out, it is time to start building and optimizing your website. Google does not allow you to simply stuff your page with keywords for rankings anymore; you are expected to be an authority, so prove you are one!
Write to Read, Not to Rank!
Whenever you write an article, create text for a landing page, or even post a social blurb, make sure it is something that is worth reading. Google requires that ALL content be informative, unique, and useful. Having your website stuffed with useless keyword-stuffed content is about as effective as a chicken trying to fly South! It is more important that your content be interesting and descriptive, than it is for it to contain a keyword or keyword phrase. That may sound counter-productive to old school SEO buffs, but with the changes Google has made, that is exactly what is required!
All content that is created for your website MUST be 100% original. Duplicate content will destroy your reputation, not only with your followers, but with Google as well. The title of the article or blog you post should be catchy, but still relate to the information within the article. If the reader clicks on a title “Lose Weight Eating Chocolate”, and they start reading about how to lose weight by eating salads and fruit, they are not only going to leave the page, they are going to leave with distrust about your site, who you are, and what you have to say. So, if you promise weight loss with chocolate in your title, your article better deliver just that!
Content Title Quick Tips:
- Keep titles between 40 to 65 characters
- Use keyword or keyword phrase in title if possible
- Be creative, but keep the title relevant to content
Tags, Headings, Descriptions and URLS
The small things on your page add up to huge SEO benefits. Many website owners forget, or neglect to add the proper tags, headings and descriptions for their on-page SEO. Below are a few quick tips that need to be addressed on your page if they have not been already.
Meta Descriptions – Write a short description of your content. Keep it around 156 characters for the best results.
Optimized URL – The content URL should optimized to match the meaning of the content on the page.
Headings and Tags – Make sure proper headings are in place, h1, h2, h3, etc. This helps the reader stay focused on your content, gives the ability to quickly scan to important parts and looks nicer on the page.
Focus Keywords – Use tags to highlight specific keywords or keyword phrases to add focus for the search engines.
Image Tags – Use proper Alt tags on all images, and always use images in your content!
Off-Page Optimization Tips
Optimizing your website with off-page SEO techniques is just as important as optimizing for on-site SEO. There are several areas outside of Google that people go to locate information, so make sure your marketing to those areas as well as to the search engines.
Social Media – Social media platforms are used to build brand awareness, establish authority on a topic, and of course, to drive traffic to your website. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Google+, and many other platforms are out there just waiting to hear from you! If you do not have an account set up on each already, get one. If you have accounts on the social media sites, take the time to learn how to use them for the most effectiveness. The social network platforms have their own unique algorithm strategy that works to bring results to their users, so you need to make sure you know how to implement your content onto each for the best results. Not all social media platforms use the same strategies or sorting methods for what content is displayed on their sites. Take the time to learn the guidelines for each platform before diving right in. Once you feel comfortable with the guidelines, start out slow and wwatch the results to see what methods you are using work the best.
The small things on your page add up to huge SEO benefits. Many website owners forget, or neglect to add the proper tags, headings and descriptions for their on-page SEO. Below are a few quick tips that need to be addressed on your page if they have not been already.
Meta Descriptions – Write a short description of your content. Keep it around 156 characters for the best results.
Optimized URL – The content URL should optimized to match the meaning of the content on the page.
Headings and Tags – Make sure proper headings are in place, h1, h2, h3, etc. This helps the reader stay focused on your content, gives the ability to quickly scan to important parts and looks nicer on the page.
Focus Keywords – Use tags to highlight specific keywords or keyword phrases to add focus for the search engines.
Image Tags – Use proper Alt tags on all images, and always use images in your content!
Off-Page Optimization Tips
Optimizing your website with off-page SEO techniques is just as important as optimizing for on-site SEO. There are several areas outside of Google that people go to locate information, so make sure your marketing to those areas as well as to the search engines.
Social Media – Social media platforms are used to build brand awareness, establish authority on a topic, and of course, to drive traffic to your website. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pintrest, Google+, and many other platforms are out there just waiting to hear from you! If you do not have an account set up on each already, get one. If you have accounts on the social media sites, take the time to learn how to use them for the most effectiveness. The social network platforms have their own unique algorithm strategy that works to bring results to their users, so you need to make sure you know how to implement your content onto each for the best results. Not all social media platforms use the same strategies or sorting methods for what content is displayed on their sites. Take the time to learn the guidelines for each platform before diving right in. Once you feel comfortable with the guidelines, start out slow and wwatch the results to see what methods you are using work the best.
Link Building – There has been a lot of debate over whether link building is still effective or not. The truth, yes, link building is still a very effective marketing tool for your SEO campaign, but you have to be careful. It is extremely important that only QUALITY links flow to your site. Building links too quickly leads to poor quality sites linking back to yours, and in Google’s eyes, that is just as bad as you having a poor quality site.
Helpful Quick Tips for Good SEO
Write Quality Content – ONLY write quality content that is meant for the reader, not the rankings.
Establish Good Keywords – Use keywords that relate closely to your topic, but that also offer a high search volume with a low competition rate.
Find LSI Keywords – Find latent Semantic Indexing keywords that relate to your keywords. Mix these keywords in with your primary keywords to create more attention on the major search engines.
Create Catchy Content Titles – Make titles eye-catching, but stay relevant to the content.
Build Quality Links – ONLY use quality links to your site for the best SEO results.
Reference: http://seositecheckup.com/articles/328
37 Awesome Tools To Get The Most From Your SEO Campaigns
37 Awesome Tools To Get The Most From Your SEO Campaigns
Columnist Matthew Barby shares his favorite tools for a wide variety of online marketing tasks.
I use a ton of different tools every day to carry out various parts of my digital campaigns – so many, in fact, that I’m going to share with you a list of 37 of my favourites. These range from link and content analysis platforms to social analytics and scheduling tools.
It’s also worth noting that I don’t have any affiliation with any of the tools mentioned within this post. These are simply tools I have used and value highly.
Analysis Tools
• Majestic. This is my link analysis tool of choice. I’ve used Majestic for years now, and you just can’t beat it when it comes to the accuracy of its stats (although I’m sure some loyal Ahrefs users will argue with that). Don’t just take my word for it, though: here is a case study that Matthew Woodward wrote a little while back that reviews a number of link analysis tools.
• Ahrefs. Similar to Majestic, Ahrefs is a fantastic tool for link analysis, especially when it comes to finding fresh links. As far as I’m concerned, no link analysis tool identifies new links more quickly than Ahrefs.
• Open Site Explorer. Here’s the last of the big three link analysis tools. Open Site Explorer (a Moz product) definitely has a much smaller index than Majestic and Ahrefs; however, its UI is definitely the easiest to work with, and it’s great for link prospecting work.
• SEMrush. This tool is second to none for discovering the organic positions of a site that you don’t have analytics access for. It’s also a powerful keyword research tool. SEMrush is one of the tools I use most on a daily basis, especially when it comes to competitive research.
• Searchmetrics. Seriously powerful and packed full of amazing data, the Searchmetrics SEO suite enables you to track, manage and measure your entire SEO campaign (enterprise level).
• BuzzSumo. One of my favourite tools out there at the moment, I just can’t stop raving about BuzzSumo! In a nutshell, with BuzzSumo, you can filter through content relevant to your niche and sort it by the number of social shares across each social network. Similarly, you can compare different domains against each other to see which site is producing the most popular content.
• NerdyData. This one is a source code search engine (great for data analysis to go into your content). Using NerdyData, you can go through and look for specific code that appears within a website. For example, if you wanted to see all of the websites that have Facebook ad tracking code within them or that use a specific WordPress plugin, then this is the tool for you.
• URL Profiler. Much like BuzzSumo, I seem to be mentioning URL Profiler more and more of late. (I put together a full review of the software which you can check out here.) In short, URL Profiler enables you to extract big data from web pages in bulk so that you can perform content audits, link analysis and much more. This is so powerful as an analysis tool.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider. Screaming Frog is powerful desktop-based website analysis tool. I use this tool as part of any SEO audit that I carry out, and it is also key in my broken link building strategies. (I recorded a full tutorial on using the tool here.)
• Long Tail Pro. This keyword research tool can be used to gather huge numbers of keywords for use within large campaigns. You can also pull in data from Moz surrounding keyword competition, as well.
• Quantcast. Get stats on website traffic to any website online without access to their analytics.
• Similar Web. This tool is similar to Quantcast, but it offers much deeper insights around traffic sources. Great for benchmarking your campaigns (I use Similar Web in tandem with SEMrush). It can also analyse mobile app traffic.
• Consumer Barometer. A project created by Google, the Consumer Barometer gives free consumer insights across a whole range of sectors. This is good for gathering stats to go into your content or to plug directly into your keyword research.
• Social Crawlytics. Gather social stats across any URL online, as well as further information around influential authors. You can even schedule reports to go out surrounding the activity of a specific domain, including new content, authors and social stats.
• Followerwonk. An advanced Twitter analytics platform owned by Moz, Followerwonk lets you analyze the followers of your competitors, search for influencers and track the success of your Twitter campaigns.
• Keyword Eye. This entry level keyword research tool is awesome for individuals, bloggers and businesses. It’s low cost and very visual, making it perfect for beginners and advanced users alike.
• Keyword Snatcher. Here is another one of my favourite keyword research tools. It pulls back huge quantities of results, using YouTube, Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo and Bing as data sources. It’s a one-time payment tool, as well, which is ideal for those that are budget conscious.
• Keyword Tool. This newcomer has been creating quite a stir within the SEO community. It looks like a really powerful keyword research tool, and I’m excited to see how it develops.
• Search Man. If you’re interested in app store optimization, this is a great keyword research suite for mobile apps. Essentially, you can use this like you would any other keyword research tool, but it gives you app-specific information.
Link Prospecting/Acquisition
• BuzzStream. This is the only email outreach and link prospecting tool that you’ll ever need. If you’re serious about SEO, then this has to be in your toolset. You can search for new link prospects, extract contact information, and send emails directly (from your own email accounts) through BuzzStream’s interface.
• Scrapebox. Often branded as a black-hat tool, Scrapebox is an SEO’s secret weapon. I wrote a really detailed tutorial on how to use Scrapebox for link prospecting, and Jacob King wrote an even better post that goes into more detail about how to use the tool for all kinds of things. You can use ScrapeBox for keyword research, large scale link prospecting, broken link building and all kinds of scraping tasks.
• HARO. Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a popular press request service that’s ideal forgaining coverage within top tier publications.
• ResponseSource. This is similar to HARO but for more of a UK audience. ResponseSource, like many press request services, can be a link building gold mine.
• Muck Rack. Here’s a fantastic database of journalists that you can pitch through directly to gain coverage for your business. I’ve gained some amazing coverage using Muck Rack.
• BuzzBundle. This social listening tool can be used to capture links, social engagement or as part of a proactive social media strategy. You can monitor unlimited phrases across social media, blogs, news sites and forums — all in real time.
• Mention. This alert tool works in a similar way to Google Alerts, but it’s much more powerful. I use this on every SEO campaign that I run and often find opportunities that I’d never have discovered otherwise. It’s really cheap and will send you email alerts to let you know when your brand/keyword has been mentioned online.
• Image Raider. Reclaim attribution links from websites using your copyrighted images – a simple but effective link reclamation strategy. Search for your images using Image Raider’s advanced search engine and get a list of the websites that have used them without linking back to you. You can often gain a number of quick links this way.
• Whitespark Citation Builder. Perfect for local SEO campaigns, Whitespark is a great service for building local citations in bulk. This tool manually creates good quality citations based around the data that you give it on your business.
• WikiGrabber. Want links from Wikipedia? Here’s your starting point. Find pages within Wikipedia that need citations so you can create content that can be used as a reference to the article in question.
• Writtent. This is a content creation service that is both cost effective and of good quality. I’ve used the service tons of times across my digital campaigns, and the writers are great.
• Hostt. This free web hosting platform is ideal for hosting a number of domains on unique IP addresses. You don’t have to pay anything and you get your domains hosted on servers – perfect!
Performance Measurement
• Google Analytics. Plain and simple, this is the industry’s leading web analytics platform. I’m sure most of you have heard of it by now!
• Cyfe. I love this tool. I’ve only been using it for a little while, but Cyfe allows you to integrate a ton of different tools into one dashboard to report on projects that you’re running. If you haven’t checked this out yet, do it now – there’s even a free option. (I recently recorded a full tutorial on using Cyfe to create marketing dashboards which you may wish to check out.)
• Sprout Social. My good friend and colleague, Troy Linehan, is the biggest Sprout fan I know. We use it for all of our social media campaigns, and it has some great features when it comes to social listening and scheduling. You can link up the various social accounts of your business, schedule in shares, analyze your followers, find brand mentions, and link up to other services like ZenDesk to add an extra layer of customer service. The reporting features are great, too.
• Oktopost. This tool is similar in functionality to the likes of Sprout Social, with powerful social management and detailed reporting features. It’s great if you’re reporting to clients. There are features to track brand mentions, get content recommendations, track messages, create a content schedule and run advanced reports.
• SerpBook. Here is a cheap and really effective keyword-ranking tracker. Although keyword rankings are becoming less important nowadays, I still monitor and track keywords within most of my campaigns, and I’d recommend still doing this yourself.
• Authority Labs. Similar to SerpBook, Authority Labs is a keyword-ranking tracker tool. There are some nicer reporting options here and some extra ways of grouping keywords (I actually use both SerpBook and Authority Labs).
Anything I missed? What tools can’t you live without?
Reference: http://searchengineland.com/37-awesome-tools-get-seo-campaigns-206980
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