Top 3 Tips for Increasing Company Blog Traffic

Want to optimize your company's blog but not sure how? Let us help you make sure that all of your company's blog posts are perfectly optimized so that all of your content is easily located by potential customers. Here are our top 3 tips for optimizing a blog post:

• Select 2 keywords that fit the topic of the article - a more general, or main, keyword, and a more specific, or secondary keyword.
• Next, optimize the body copy. Do this by adding the main and secondary keywords in the text where it makes sense. Don't put it in where it doesn't - this "keyword stuffing" will eventually get you in trouble with Google.
• Next, create your "title tag." This is the title of the article that will show up in a search engine. Make sure you include the main keyword and make it as catchy as possible to gain clicks.

Want more tips for optimizing blog posts? We have more detailed descriptions of our top 3 tips, as well as 3 additional tips, available for free in our article on increasing blog traffic.

The GPS of SEO for Panda and Penguin Updates

Was your website affected by either of the two major updates (called Panda and Penguin) that Google made to its search engine algorithm within the past year? If so, you may have become an unwilling expert in new search engine optimization (SEO) strategies out of necessity. Even if your website wasn’t hit with any penalties due to the updates, they have changed the way that we look at optimization.

We updated our ABC’s of SEO – Architecture, Backlinks and Content – with an additional set of guidelines to help your search engine optimization efforts meet the Panda and Penguin standards. Presenting the GPS of SEO:

Great Content = Google’s goal with Panda is quality over quantity. It is still important to post lots of fresh content, but it’s just as important that this content is valuable and incites people to share it, bookmark it, engage with it and spend time with it.

Panda = Advanced artificial intelligence programs reward well-designed, high-quality websites that are visually appealing as well as trustworthy. Basically, your website must be attractive on the inside and out. Luckily, tools like WordPress offer simple and quick solutions for posting a website that is both easy to use and easy on the eyes.

Social Signals = These are equivalent to virtual votes for a website or web page. Google used to use the number of links to determine the value or quality of a page, but it was too easy to simply buy links or use other unscrupulous methods to fake your links. Social signals are “Likes” (Facebook,) “Tweets” (Twitter) and “+1’s” (Google +.) These votes are much harder to fake and, thanks to the Penguin update, much more valuable than a link.

Following the GPS of SEO will help your website get “found” in the vast World Wide Web. Good Luck! 

One Key Takeaway for SEO in 2013

One word: Diversify.

Aside from the obvious importance of producing quality content, Dr. Pete’s blog post on SEOmoz highlights the word “diversify” as the #1 tip for SEO in 2013. Your marketing strategy has to include unique and quality content along with a rich mixture of tactics, or soon Google will catch up to your website.

What does he mean by diversify? Here is a breakdown:

1. Diversify Anchor Text
2. Diversify Your Links
3. Diversify Traffic Sources
4. Diversify Your Marketing
5. Diversify Your Point Of View

The SEO landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. Some of the prior methods just don’t work as effectively nowadays. It is more important now than ever before to update your approach to present day SEO.

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: Capture Queen ™

SEO Strategies for Search Engine Success

We’ve broken down the basic strategies of SEOto its simplest form – the ABC’s. Follow these guidelines and your website can have a chance at search engine success.

Architecture – The way your website is designed, or coded, could mean the difference between success and absolute failure. For this, you need to think about the back end of the site. Is the html code easy for the search engine spiders to read? Are keywords part of your site’s navigation? Do you have a link to an HTML Site Map on each page? If the answer is no to any of these questions, then your website’s chances of being shown in a search engine result go down drastically. (Hint: If your website is a Flash design, it will not be easy for search engine spiders to read.)

Backlinks – Having links from other, quality websites to your site tells the search engines that there is something of value on your website. Creating compelling content, writing guest blog posts and getting “social signals” (likes, mentions and shares from social media sites) are just some of the ways to create backlinks. Get creative with it!

Content – As mentioned above, compelling content is a must for any website nowadays. The content must be relevant to your website, of course, and adding new content on a daily basis is highly recommended by Google.

True search engine optimization is actually a lot more complex, but putting a strong foundation in place for your website is a great way to start.

5 SEO Tips for Your Business

You can only get the most out of your site if you boost your web presence through SEO. Here are some helpful tips for getting started:

1. Research top keywords for your industry and your site and get some statistics to help you decide which ones would be best for your optimization process. This helpful free Google tool is a great place to get started.
2. Include meta tags on each page for your site. You're going to want to make sure that you have a meta description, meta title, and meta keywords in the code for each page to help the search engines better index you. Having an H1and H2 with keywords in the title is also helpful.
3. Optimize your on-page copy by using keywords you have selected for your meta tags on each page. Be sure not to put too many keywords on one page - this keyword stuffing could get you in trouble with the search engines.
4. Build links to trusted websites and blogs. If you have partners who have websites, ask them to provide a link to your site. Offer to guest post on popular blogs to gain more backlinks as well.
5. Provide blog content on your own site and add more pages when you can so that there are more pages indexed by search engines. The more new, fresh content you can provide, the better. It's also a great opportunity to ask for guest posts on your blog from others in exchange for a guest post on their blog.

If you're itching for more tips, just check out this Soshable article.

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents Ten Leading SEO Strategies and Tactics

This Wednesday Webinar, presented by Jay Berkowitz, CEO of TenGoldenRules.com, will provide Ten Leading Strategies and Tactics for Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

This webinar will cover how to read the minds of prospective consumers, how to use tools to measure how Google reads your site, website build best practices for SEO , keyword research, link building, meta tags and the new Google Panda update.

This free webinar will take place Wednesday, September 28, 2011 from 12:30pm EDT – 1:30pm EDT. To register and for more information please visit: Ten Leading SEO Strategies and Tactics

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents SEO Lab – Search Engine Optimization Website Analysis

Join Jay Berkowitz, CEO of TenGoldenRules.com, for this premiere Wednesday Webinar, “SEO Lab – Search Engine Optimization Website Analysis.” Submit your website for a free SEO analysis by Jay and the TenGoldenRules.com Expert Team.

This presentation will explain the following topics:

• Learn the ABC’s of Search Engine Optimization
• Adhering to Search Engine Optimization Best Practices
• Advanced Tactics for Quality and Successful Link Building for SEO
• Recommendations for Search Engine Optimization Friendly Website Code

How does your site stack up? Submit your website for a Free SEO Content Analysis, Website Search Engine Optimization Code Review, Link Quantity, Quality and Relevance Analysis and more. To submit your website, send your submission via ‘Send a Message’ to Jay Berkowitz by clicking this link.

This free webinar will take place Wednesday, January 5, 2011 12:30pmEST – 1:30pmEST. To register and for more information please visit: SEO Lab – Search Engine Optimization Website Analysis

Google Updates Search Results As You Type

Google appears to be slowly rolling out an update that allows results on their search engine results page to change as you begin entering a new search query. Whether or not this feature will make it through beta and roll out to all Google search users is still up in the air, but a representative from Google confirmed to Techcrunch that this is indeed being tested.

So what would this update mean to your current search engine optimization efforts? First off, you may experience fewer click-throughs from a search engine results page if people begin modifying their query. The best thing to do is ensure that if your website is ranking for a particular phrase, it is also ranking for all close variations.

For example, if your website ranks #1 in Google for "search engine marketing company" you will want to ensure you also rank for "search engine marketing companies", "search engine marketing company in..." and "search engine marketing company services".

In order to rank for the variations, make sure there are several variations on the page that is ranking by working them into the body copy. Also, try to build links using all the keyword variations as the anchor text of the links. Even if Google does not roll out this update to everyone, it is still good practice to rank for all the variations of a given phrase.

10 Free SEO Tools

You don't have to break the bank to apply search engine optimization to your website. Here are ten free tools that will assist you in your SEO efforts:

1. SEO Quake - This toolbar for Firefox and Chrome provides important metrics for any website you visit, including Google PageRank, number of backlinks to a page and to a domain, number of pages indexed in Google, Alexa rank, and many others. This is a great place to start competitive research.
2. SEMRush - This free tool lets you see what phrases a given website is ranking for in Google. By looking at the phrases your competitors rank for, you can get an idea of what phrases you should be optimizing your own website for.
3. Google Webmaster Tools - This tool helps you ensure that there are no problems with your website that will hurt you in Google. You can see if you have any 404 errors, duplicate title tags, missing meta descriptions and many other issues. You can also submit an XML Sitemap to help Google crawl your entire website.
4. Online Spider Simulator - See any page of your website the way search engine spiders see it. This is a great way to make sure all of your content is visible to the search engines.
5. Keyword Density Tool - Provide a page url to this tool and it will return the keyword density of all phrases on the page. This will help you determine if your page is over-optimized for any phrases. Note that any phrases with a keyword density over 5% are likely over-optimized.
6. Rank Checker - This Firefox plug-in provides your website's Google, Yahoo, and Bing rankings of up to 100 keyword phrases at a time. Track your rankings over time to ensure that your SEO efforts are not in vain.
7. Yahoo Site Explorer - See what websites are linking to your website or to your competitors' websites. By looking at your competitors' backlinks, you can identify pages that may be likely to link to you as well.
8. Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer - Determine the quality of your backlinks by seeing what are the most commonly used anchor text variations that link to your website.
9. Google Keyword Tool - Research keyword phrases in your industry that people are searching for. This tool will give you suggestions of related keywords, as well as the number of times the phrases are searched each month and competitive data.
10. The Internet Marketing Club - This community of online marketers is a great place to find out new SEO information, exchange tips and ideas, and ask questions of industry leaders. There is also a free weekly webinar that teaches members various aspects of search engine optimization and other internet marketing principles.
    

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents Ten Strategies for SEO

Start 2010 off right with the core strategies and advanced tactics you'll need to optimize your website to be found in Google and the other search engines!

Join Jay Berkowitz, Author of "The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing" for an interactive Webinar where you will learn:

1. How to determine how Google and the other search engines evaluate your website and how many search results you have today
2. How to read the minds of your customers and prospects. What are they searching for? What keyword phrases do they use? Which search engine do they favor?
3. Optimal website build techniques for SEO
4. Keyword research and content development
5. Critical link building
6. Meta Tags, File Names, Hyperlinks and AltTags

This webinar will take place on Wednesday, January 6, 2010 12:30pmEST – 1:30pmEST. To register please visit: Ten Strategies for SEO

Great Presentation how to get blogs to Rank on Google

Matt Cutts from Google did a great presentation at WordCamp in San Francisco. WordCamps BarCamps and Podcamps are free (or cheap) conferences about the interactive space. Wordcamps are focused on WordPress a free blogging platform.

You can find the Matt Cutts Video here.

"WordPress takes care of 90% of the mechanics of Search Engine Optimization"

Title/Meta Tags – Not Just for SEO

I was recently asked by a client if it would be a big deal to leave off title tags and meta tags from their site. Coming from an SEO background, I couldn’t express enough how important title tags are for ranking for keyword phrases. It made me think, however, about the effects title and meta tags have on click through rate.

Let’s assume that you do rank in the top ten in Google for a targeted keyword phrase. What is going to make a user click on your listing? Well, the first thing they will see is your title tag. At first glance, what is mentioned in your title tag is all they will know about your business. You basically have a fraction of a second to catch someone’s attention and provide them information about your page with your title tag. Since most search engines only display about 60-70 characters of your title tag, keep it short and sweet with your most important keywords at the beginning. Only use words that will make a difference, such as your main keyword phrase and the name of the company. Space is limited and precious, so don’t waste space with unnecessary filler words.

Since there is only enough space allowed in the title tag to grab the user’s attention, you need to complement it with the meta description. Since many search engines include a snippet from the description on the SERPs, this is your chance to provide more details on what your page is about and persuade them to click on your listing. Restate your main keyword phrase in the beginning of the first sentence and let the user know that this is the page they are looking for.

Of course the meta keywords are the least important piece of the heading, but if you can include them, do it. Just make sure any words you place in the meta keywords tag appear within the body of the page.

Google Advises Not to Rewrite Dynamic URLs

Yesterday, Google clarified their position on Dynamic vs Static URLs on their blog. At this time, they're not recommending rewriting dynamic URLs, because it's hard to create and maintain URL rewrites. Google recommends serving the original dynamic URL and let them handle the problem of detecting and avoiding problematic parameters.

As Barry Schwartz comments in his post, "Google Says, Don't Rewrite Dynamic URLs to Static URLs", this is a radical change in how SEOs handle dynamic websites. For many years, SEOs have been recommending using URL rewrites because previously Google and the other search engines had issues crawling dynamic sites. However, with recent improvements to their crawling and indexing technology, it's no longer the case. It can even cause an issue with your SEO campaign.

If you're currently using URL rewrites, should you jump on the change bandwagon? It all depends your site's specific situation. My best advice is to review your existing web analytic and search engine ranking reports. See how well your "static" URLs are penetrating the search results, and then make your decision. If you're a new site in production or just launched, you should probably stick to dynamic URLs.

New Video Ten Free Tools to Prepare Your Company for a Recession

We are producing a series of videos on how to recession proof your business. Here is tip #1 - how to generate free traffic to your website with search engine optimization