March 1st, 2013

Thinking and Communicating like an SEO, Marketer and a Client

 

Several viewpoints of thought are essential for Internet marketers. All areas need to think like the other to coexist and to execute a successful SEO campaign. Before I began diving into the sales world, I never thought of SEO from a sales perspective. Likewise, if I hadn’t worked in SEO prior to sales, I wouldn’t full understand why it is so important to integrate the two.

 

During the sales process, it is very easy for the lines of realistic outcomes to become blurred. Once this happens, a client’s campaign is fast tracking towards disaster. Managing client expectations is a phrase that is constantly being thrown around the office. Managing expectations is the first step in the right direction for an SEO campaign.

 

Expose the Realistic Possibilities

It is important that the client understands that SEO’s do not control Google, although we would all like to. We have control over the work we do and the deliverables at the end of the month. Promising specific ranking results or outcomes in place of reporting on tested research, link building efforts, and other deliverables is just asking for an unhappy client. Realistic goals should be discussed at the beginning of the relationship, and if the client has unrealistic expectations, it is the sale’s persons and SEO’s job to define a realistic path for their campaign.

 

Communication is Key

One of the most surefire ways to avoid these mishaps is communication. Communication between the sales team and the people carrying out the work is essential. While a marketer might think ranking #1 for “trees” in month 1 is feasible, an SEO specialist will tell you “no way, no how.”

 

Actually, they probably won’t even say anything– they will just laugh and think you are joking with them. Taking a couple minutes to speak with your SEO team about a client’s campaign could save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

 

Skip the Tactics, Strategize Like a Marketer

On the flip side, it is crucial that SEO’s think like marketers. If a campaign isn’t working for the client, it is the SEO’s job to identify it and bring it to the sale’s team’s attention. This way, a different approach can be recommended for the client. If a client starts a campaign and wants 15 blog posts written a month, but you discover that they really should be producing an awesome piece of content as link bait, it is your job to convince the client of it’s worth. Taking on this mindset will deliver better results for the client, help out the sales people, and keep your company very happy with you.

 

Put Yourself in the Client’s Shoes

Lastly, the most important person to think like is the client. No one knows the client’s campaign better than the SEO working on it. That being said, when it comes time to talk to the client, we, as SEO specialists, tend to rattle on about metrics, SERPs, link bait, etc. without realizing that the client has NO idea what we are talking about. Instead of rambling on about the technical aspects, explain what it is and what it means to them. Not only will this help them understand, but also if the client understands what it is and how it will benefit them, they are much more likely to approve your suggestion.

As an SEO or an old-school marketer, if you can master these different perspectives, you will be paving a path for success for yourself and your clients.

Published by Sarah Stoltzfus on March 1st, 2013 in Business, General Information, Sales & Marketing, Search Marketing & Optimization

January 23rd, 2013

ANYTHING but BLOGGING!

Yep, it is YOUR turn to write the next company blog post. Ownership has sent down the mandate that everyone will participate. They aren’t sure why it’s necessary and they certainly won’t make the time to write their own post, but some SEO guru’s voice has been heard on the C-Level. Knowing that your paycheck is dependent upon the completion of this task you begin to ask yourself questions like…what should I write about, who is my audience, should I be serious or funny, how long should it be, and possibly the most critical question pertaining to the success or failure of the entire post, “WHY am I doing this again?” (Oh, that’s right, my paycheck).

We (WebTalent Marketing) are that “SEO guru” mentioned above that many employees of our clients have secretly cursed for filling their owner’s head with the virtues of blogging. BE ENCOURAGED, my nameless/faceless blogging friend, this post is for you as I, in typical blogging etiquette, casually and briefly address some of the “What, How, and Why’s.”

WHAT…
• Is a blog in the first place? It, quite simply, should be a clearly defined page within your company website that acts as your direct communication channel with prospects, clients, and employees. Not all of your target audiences can be addressed with each post so always keep in mind who you are writing to and make certain that message is appropriate to achieve the desired outcome.
• Should you write about? Write about your industry trends and happenings. Find industry related topics that are neglected, do a little research, and then write for the purpose of adding value. Write about company related events and happenings. This content is fuel for your social campaigns!

HOW…
• Often should you post? As much as possible. 4 to 8 posts per month (not all coming that last week) is a good start. Some say, as often as you have something valuable to share. Don’t post for the sake of posting, and don’t wait until your company has “cured cancer” to share.
• Should I write? Again, this is somewhat dependent upon your topic and target audience but, in general, write in a way that is representative of your organization (or in a way you’d like your organization to be). Write in a clear and concise (500 words is good) way that promotes engagement with your audience. Shares, likes, reposts, and comments are all good indicators of your engagement. Don’t be afraid to show personality while allowing your expertise to shine through.

WHY…
• Should I bother? Going back to the paycheck reason…your pay may be influenced by blogging. No, not in the sense that you keep your job if you do it, but rather the blog creates opportunities to generate additional revenue through sales as well as retention. It is a platform for your companies’ voice to reach the people contributing to or having the potential to impact your bottom line. Are you talking to them?
• Is it REALLY important? Ok, so the crux of this post is right here…It is REALLY important because the content you create for it is the best indicator to Google (and the others) that your door is open for business. Search engines love/demand fresh content in order to determine your relevance and to then consider your website more authoritative than your competition.

Would you like your company website to outrank your competitors and get more sales or inbound leads? Posting on your blog is a great way to show your expertise and engage with your audience in a non-salesy manner. We should know – you’re reading our blog right now!

Do have any concerns about investing time into your company blog? Leave us a comment below, and we’ll help you figure it out.

HAPPY BLOGGING!

Published by Matt Self on January 23rd, 2013 in Business, General Information

January 7th, 2013

2012 SEO Industry Recap

Personalized Search Goes Hand-in-Hand with Social Media Integrations.

Google has made great strides this year to give the user a greater, more personalized, and much more relevant search experience. The “January 30-Pack” and “Search + Your World” updates revealed an agressive shift towards personalized search, which involves the integration of Google+ services into searchers’ daily routines in order to get them the best possible personalized search results.

For the search purist, Google has given the option to turn off personalized search right on the search result page itself, so you can see results either or both ways with just a click.

 

Backlink Profiles Are Under Much Stricter Scrutiny.

Updates to the Google Penguin algorithm have shown that those of us who *may or may not* have paid for a bunch of bulk directory submissions for easy link juice are not practicing real marketing. As a result, Google has decided to penalize websites whose backlink profiles contain a significant portion of low quality and/or unrelated links, which is the opposite of what anyone spamming links actually wants.

 

Local Search Results Show Up in More Searches

Google has pushed Local Search Results to the forefront of their efforts in organic search. Using users’ locations via IP Addresses when searching from a computer, or mobile location data for smartphone searchers, Google is providing a much more user-centric service by auto-assuming on many searches that the user is looking for something local. For example, why would it make sense for Google to display a search result for a coffee shop in Seattle when the user searches for “coffee shop” while in Houston, Texas? It wouldn’t. It makes much more sense to display a map with local listings of coffee shops within a few miles of that user’s location, so that the user can go get a cup of coffee.

 

Exact Match Domains Ousted

Ok, so maybe they’re not ousted, but they have definitely been devalued. This update seems like an inevitable update for fairness; as time goes on, the number of available exact match domains for high traffic keywords will shrink, and people buying and selling these domains as real estate will increase. I am glad that this update has occurred, if for no other reason than to officially tell people to stop worrying about the little tricks and just do a good job marketing your website. Long before this update, for example, the people at camelcamelcamel.com were able to rank #1 for “amazon price tracking” with a domain that seems more suited for Egyptian adventure guides or a discount cigarette retailer.

 

Ads Above the Fold

Another update for which I am strongly in favor. This update to the Page Layout algorithm targets websites with too many banner ads and PPC ads above the fold, which is the space visible on most users’ screens when they first land on a website, before they scroll down. This update is essentially Google telling everyone that ads are generally not what people come to quality websites for, and as such, websites should not place importance on ads by having an excessive amount above the fold. For me, any ads above the fold is too many.

 

Overall…

I feel this year was a great year for Google and a great year for internet marketing as a whole. Google IS a company looking to make money, but their focus on making websites adhere to natural and user-friendly rules and guidelines makes me feel a whole lot better about the internet. I see great things coming in 2013, where hopefully, more and more companies will practice less ‘gaming’ Google and practice more actual marketing. It’s great to be aware of Google’s guidelines for producing and promoting quality guidelines, but looking for ways to expose flaws in their algorithms is fairly futile. They have HOW MANY PhD’s working for them? And how much money do they have to fund research and data analysis? Give up the game and get to real marketing, and we’ll all have a happy 2013.

Published by Mike Green on January 7th, 2013 in General Information, Google Algorithm

November 29th, 2012

Wishful Thinking For Yahoo & Facebook?

Earlier this month before Thanksgiving rumors that the CEO’s from both Facebook and Yahoo had a meeting of how the two companies can combine services to provide a powerful social heavy search engine to combat against search powerhouse Google.  With Facebook’s massive amount of data from its’ users, Yahoo is trying to team up with Facebook to get a piece of the search engine market share by creating a new search engine with heavy social media influence integration.  An agreement and relationship between the two would allow Yahoo to use the gigantic amount of user-generated data and brand influence power Facebook has.

The meeting between Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer doesn’t come much as a surprise since Facebook and Bing currently has a relationship.  Bing has integrated personal Facebook activity paired with Bing’s search engine interface.  Bing’s integration of Facebook into its’ search engine results offers suggestions of your search by using recommendations, likes and similar interests of your friends to show results you may be interested in and also allows you the ability to share your search results from Bing on Facebook.

Until their contract ends in 2019, Bing is currently obligated to provide the backend support for Yahoo’s search engine technology.  Bing hasn’t been able to take on or take any noticeable slice out of Google’s market share of search, which may explain why the relationship between the two may be on the fritz.  Microsoft’s inability to launch a serious competitive challenge against Google may be the reason for the Yahoo and Facebook alliance.

But will the alliance between the two giants be able to launch a serious competitive attack on Google?  The answer simply is no.  Neither Facebook nor Yahoo has the search engine technology, foundation, information, data and talent to take on Google.  Yeah, Facebook is a powerful juggernaut, has ridiculous amounts of data and influential brand power but their weight of experience is in social…not search.  Search engine is a different monster than social, and Google already has a strong foothold and head start with their search engine algorithm.  You can have all the data in the world, but if you don’t have the talent of programmers, visionaries and analytical researchers with search engine experience to take that data and create a super search engine with both search and social integration, its’ not going anywhere and it’s not going to put a dent into Google’s market share of search.

What does Yahoo need to do in order to try to compete with Google?  Yahoo needs to stop trying to patch up the old and broken system it still uses today.  It is obviously not working and no matter how many times you try to patch it up, there are still going to be leaks and problems until it eventually collapses in on itself.  Yahoo needs to take greater advantage of Bing’s search engine technology.  Bing currently has more innovative talent, better search technology and a user-friendlier search engine experience than Yahoo.  With Microsoft’s deep pockets and resources, it would be a wiser investment in recruiting plenty of talent of programmers and innovators in the search engine world.

Published by Ray Carboni on November 29th, 2012 in General Information, Search Marketing & Optimization, Social Media, Social Media Marketing

August 16th, 2012

Google Releases PageRank Update In August

Webmasters across the Internet experienced some additional changes to their sites late last week by Google with another PageRank update.  The recent changes to the algorithm behind PageRank caused many sites to go up or down or remain the same in PageRank.  The PageRank update is the third update this year and has been consistently coming out quarterly.  Google has been consistently rolling out PageRank updates this year with two being released in May and February.  The fourth and final update for PageRank for this year is expected to be released sometime in November.

 

Developed back in 1998, PageRank uses a numeric system that issues grades to websites between 1-10 with 10 being the most prestigious ranking (even Google themselves do not have a 10).  PageRank is supported by a complex formula that is used to determine the value of a website by evaluating hundreds of different factors throughout your website.  Not every factor of the algorithm behind PageRank is known, but several important things we do know from years of testing throughout the SEO industry. And some factors that determine PageRank include ease of navigability, content, crawlability, backlinks, domain age, keyword density and proper canonicalization are all part of the formula.  Not all factors are graded equally in the algorithm, some are more important than others; some factors are weighted more against others for the level of importance and the impact they may have on a website.

 

Don’t be fooled by false appearances.

 

 

Many people make the wrong inclination that just because a link opportunity has a high PageRank, it must be a good link to go after.  Don’t be deceived by high PageRank’s when looking for link opportunities.  Just because a website has a PageRank of 5, doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a good link to have in your backlink profile.  There are many more important factors to consider than PageRank when determining if a link opportunity is a good fit for your website.

 

The most important determining factor is content, and that is especially true since Google is constantly changing their algorithm to be more content and social relevant.  This is also especially true with Google’s recent search engine algorithm changes evident by their releasing Panda and Penguin updates this year.  High relevant content that is relative to your niche is going to be more powerful than any high PageRank not related to your niche.  Always keep that in mind as you are determining if a link is a good fit or not.  Some other factors that you might also look at when evaluating a website is to look at their recent cache date, high number of links to the domain, low outbound link count, in-context links, site age, low Alexa score and not spammy.

 

There are tools available everywhere online to determine what your PageRank is.  A personal favorite that is easy to install, use and that is compatible with Firefox is called the SEO Toolbar from SEOBook.  The toolbar appears in your Firefox browser and you are able to pull up information such as PageRank and other relevant qualifying factors about any website immediately.

Published by Ray Carboni on August 16th, 2012 in General Information

July 25th, 2012

Bootstrap: A Must Have for Web Developers

What is Bootstrap? Released by Twitter, Bootstrap is the ultimate resource for aspiring web designers and developers. It is a front-end toolkit consisting of a large collection of CSS combined with the latest browser developing techniques to provide you with everything you need to develop your very-own website.  Packed with stylish typography, forms, tables, grids, buttons, navigation and so much more, it has everything!

 

 

Why bother? As stated on their website, Bootstrap is built with Less; which you can read more about it by clicking here.  By incorporating Less into Bootstrap, we end up with additional built-in features like mixins, operations, variables, nested declarations, and color functions. On top of that according to Mark Otto; creator of Bootstrap, we gain two extremely important benefits:

“ First, Bootstrap remains very easy to implement; just drop it in your code and go. Compiling Less can be accomplished via Javascript, an unofficial Mac application, or via Node.js (read more about this at (http://lesscss.org).

Second, once complied, Bootstrap contains nothing but CSS, meaning there are no superfluous images, Flash, or Javascript. All that remains is simple and powerful CSS for your web development needs.”

 

 

Final Thoughts. All in all, if you’re looking to speed-up your development time Bootstrap is the way to go. Considering it is already optimized for mobile devices (i.e cell phones and iPads), many of the features you would incorporate in your website are already created for you, so what’s the point in re-inventing something that’s already there for you? What are your thoughts?

Published by Nick Canarelli on July 25th, 2012 in General Information, Web Design & Development

July 11th, 2012

New Webmaster Tools Feature To Disavow Backlinks Released

With the latest penguin update, the relationship of backlinks pointing to one another has been the latest stir in news as website owners are scrambling to remove links that they deem as more hurtful to their website than good.  With links from spammy, irrelevant, bad neighborhood, paid links, blog rolls, link farms, etc., the ability to now disavow links from your website is a great link management resource for website owners to now have control over.  This type of tool has been on the most wanted list of website owners and SEO’s with the release of Google’s Penguin update earlier this year…except it was first released by the not so popular search engine Bing.

 

 

Bing recently released a new resource in its Bing Webmaster Tools allowing website owners the ability to disavow backlinks.  Trying to grab a foothold in the search engine marketplace with the launch of their new user-friendly interface of its webmaster tools last month, this gives website owners the ability to take control over their backlinks and to disavow certain backlinks they do not want associated with their website.  But don’t expect huge jumps in rankings because of this addition, as backlinks are just one of many factors in Bing’s algorithm.

This tool not only helps web owners but also helps Bing understand relationships between websites.  When you disavow a link, this sends an alert to Bing that you do not want to be associated with that website.  If a great number of web owners are disavowing certain sites, this is an indication to Bing to take a closer look into that site and determine why web owners do not want to be associated with it.

 

 

Could this be some marketing ploy by Bing to temporarily gain some popularity by SEO’s and webmasters or are they trying to secure their future in search engine market share? According to a recent study by Experian Hitwise, as of May 2012 Google had 65% of the search engine market share with Bing having 28%, an increase of 5% from the previous year.  Slowly Bing has been catching up on the heels of Google and with Google shooting itself in the foot with updates, de-valuing sites and leaving organic results in ruins…Bing is taking advantage of the situation by giving the people want they want.  But by giving people what they want and too much control, will it be taken advantage of by gaining “questionable links” and disavowing links that caused droppings in rankings and authority?  Most definitely yes they will.

So will Google follow in the footsteps of Bing and release something similar?  This is a great feature but with more work done to it, it could be a great addition to Google Webmaster Tools.  Unlike how Google Webmaster Tools display backlinks, the biggest downfall of this tool is that it doesn’t display incoming links to your domain.  You have to enter websites manually, which can be a timely project if you have a huge list of backlinks to disavow.

If you are not sure how to pull backlinks, you can use SEOMoz’s Open Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools or for a full in-depth backlink profile, use Majestic SEO.

Published by Ray Carboni on July 11th, 2012 in Did You Know, General Information

May 31st, 2012

Google Knowledge Graph is Fine Tuning Your Search

So, Google has once again found a way to improve search by the launch of their latest update, the Knowledge Graph. Most Google users may not notice the slight change in Google’s search results appearance, however this change does have significant effects over search results. This new Knowledge Graph is a representation of how Google builds relationships between people, places, and things.

 

Google Gives You the Power

 

Based on the search term you enter into Google, it now gives you the choice to tell them what you are searching for. To pay homage to my favorite football team, I have used “Eagles” as my search query example. When I typed this into Google’s search bar, Google gave me a set of options for my search term based on its meaning or interpretation of the search term. This is displayed to the right of the search results and includes the sports team, the musical band and the animal.

 

Because there are several different meanings for the term “Eagles”, Google has prompted me to select which term I was actually searching for. In this case, I chose the football team, Philadelphia Eagles. If Google understands several meanings of  your search query, it will ask you which one you are looking for. This helps Google to tailor your results more specifically to what you are looking for.  Once I clicked on Philadelphia Eagles, my Knowledge Bar displayed facts, statistics, etc. for the Philadelphia Eagles football team.

Highlighting Key Facts

 

In the knowledge bar I can now see facts about the Philadelphia Eagles including their current roster. These facts are all viewable without ever leaving the results page. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me. I wish that Google had this back when I was in school and completing book reports and research papers where facts were not as easy to find. Along with the snapshot of facts about the Philadelphia Eagles, my normal search results located directly below the query bar are now targeted for information and news strictly about the Philadelphia Eagles.

 

Likewise, if I search for “Ryan Reynolds” it gives me a nice little snapshot including facts like his birthday, height, parents, movies he starred in and a couple of other facts. This Knowledge Bar also provides users with a section that includes people, places, or things that people also searched for when searching for your term.

 

Millions of Objects and Billions of Facts

 

Google has stated that the Knowledge Bar contains 3.5 billion facts on 500 million objects. Currently this feature includes facts for Authors, Actors, Directors, Movies, Sports Teams, Cities and Countries, Musical Groups and much more. However not every search term will have a knowledge bar, so you may not notice this bar depending on the term that you search for.

 

For some, this might seem like an overwhelming number and its impossible to not ask “how the heck does Google narrow it down?!” Google decides which facts appear in the Knowledge Bar based on which facts are most searched for.

 

Whether your searching for the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles or Ryan Reynolds new film, you are likely to learn a couple of new facts in the process.  Google is now providing its users with relevant information on the term they are searching for and in some cases getting users to remain on Google’s results page instead of traveling to a new source for the information they may have been looking for. The Knowledge Graph is shaping up to be a helpful tool in the world of search. Of course Google will continue to tweak and perfect this new facet of search, so expect bigger and better things from the Knowledge Bar.

For more information on Google’s new Knowledge Bar visit Google’s blog or check out this video!

 

Published by Sarah Stoltzfus on May 31st, 2012 in Business, General Information, Uncategorized

February 29th, 2012

Search Quality Has Improved: Google Makes 40 Updates in February 2012

Google is always tweaking their processes to bring forth better search results for users and they recently announced in a blog post that 40 search updates were implemented for the month of February. That’s right, 40 in one month! This marks a new record for Google for their monthly series on search quality.

Google claims to be continuously trying to make small improvements to every aspect of their systems including related searches, autocomplete, sitelinks, indexing, synonyms, UI elements, and much more. “Each individual change is subtle and important, and over time they add up to a radically improved search engine,” says Google. You can see the complete list of Google’s updates on their blog, but here are some that caught my attention.

Link Evaluation

Google claims to have changed the way in which they evaluate links by turning off a method of link analysis they’ve been using for several years. Sad, but true, and I believe they just broke the hearts of every search marketing firm in the world. Just when we got close, they switch things around! Google claims it was necessary to re-architect certain parts of their scoring in order to maintain a clean and understandable system. Google won’t give specifics on any new link evaluation signals or any more information on the one they turned off, but that’s okay Google, we’ll recover!

Local Search Rankings

Along with the link evaluation signal, Google’s post says local results are being improved because of a “new system to find results from a user’s city more reliably.” Google has improved the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of their main search results as a signal. They’re now more capable of detecting when both queries and documents are local to the user.

More Local Relevant Predictions in YouTube

When it comes to the ranking for predictions in YouTube, Google wants to provide more locally relevant queries. In Google’s blog post, they use Lady Gaga as an example. The query “Lady Gaga in” would typically generate a variety of different predictions. Now, if that query is entered on the US version of YouTube, Google may predict “Lady Gaga in Times Square,” but if the query is performed on the Indian version of YouTube, you may see “Lady Gaga in India.” Don’t worry little monsters, Google will still bring you Gaga videos, only they’ll be from a town near you!

Now I know you don’t have all day, so here are some other updates you may want to know about…
“Site:” Query Update: Google improves the ranking for queries that use the “site:” operator by increasing the diversity of results.

Expanding the Size of Image Index in Universal Search: Google expanded the collection of image results that are shown in Universal Search.

International Launch of Shopping Rich Snippets: These snippets help users identify shopping sites that have the most relevant products according to the user’s needs. They typically display product prices, availability, reviews and ratings, etc. and for a while were only available in the United States, Germany and Japan. Google has changed that and shopping rich snippets have gone global!

In addition to these 40 updates, Google has also confirmed the Panda 3.3 update. Google isn’t saying much about the update, other than it refreshes data in the Panda system, making it more accurate and more sensitive to recent changes on the web.

As you can see, Google has been very busy this past month and with all of these updates at once, I’m sure some discussion will occur. Share your thoughts with Web Talent Marketing on Facebook or Tweet us @socialmediafirm.

Published by Mike Canarelli on February 29th, 2012 in General Information, Uncategorized

December 6th, 2011

Link Ninjas Top Secret Strategies

Writen by Miki Dehevan and Ray Carboni.

Here’s the story. You already work in Search Marketing and you are aware that this elusive thing called Link Building exists, and not only do your clients now know about it, but you actually have to do it for them. Not an easy, or time efficient feat. You probably know by now that not all link building is created equal and that to get the longterm effects you seek, you have to do the dirty work. Today we are going to talk about what to do when you are already in there, elbows deep in the muck of link building, so grab your rubber gloves ladies, we are going in.

Evaluating Websites For Link Building

This is the first line of defense when considering what websites you should reach out to during the “cherry picking” stage of your link excursion. First you want to check out some of the website information to determine whether or not it’s a good fit for your client or product, and whether or not they have enough authority to be worth your time.

Page Rank – Ah, page rank. Like the mythical Yetti, we know it exists out there but who can tell me the migratory patterns and feeding habits? Page rank is the total authority that Google ascribes to a website based on how useful the provided information is and how many people link to it with relevant information. But searchers beware, the mighty Page Rank can be misleading, so please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and do not use this as your sole basis for choosing a site for link building.  Page Rank can change quickly based on a variety of factors, and you want to be sure that the site as a whole is quality, not just their PR7.

Now, Site PR is a little bit different. If Google ranks an inner-lying page, deep within the dark recesses of the Yetti cave, this is a great sign that the website is authoritative and worthwhile. Feel free to feed it peanuts and that stale bag of candy corn you have left over from Halloween.

 Site Age – This is another indicator that the site you are looking at is worth those precious billable link building hours. The age of a site shows longevity in a field, trustworthiness in relation to a reliable source of quality information, and seniority on a topic. If that blog you are looking at just popped up in the last three months, Google sees that as either a micro-blogger, who creates and runs multiple blogs for the sole purpose of SEO-ing the bejesus out of it, or as someone new to the field and less authoritative on the subject.

If you think that a site is worth your efforts to gain a link but aren’t certain, keep your eye on it and give it time. If it is still around 6 months from now and has done some link building of its own then you can take joy in the knowledge that you were right. And then go home and rub it in your wife’s face. If its no longer an active website, then be glad you didn’t request that link to begin with because you would be doing that work all over again to make up for the loss of link juice when the site went down.

 Cache Date – This lets you know the last time Google crawled the website, which happens every time the webmaster adds new content (that is, of course, correctly indexed within their own sitemap and linked to from other pages on their website). Regular-to-frequent updates are a good sign and mean that if the site DOES deign you worthy of their coveted links, Google will crawl it promptly, giving you a faster boost in your own rankings.

 Relevance and Content – This is your numero uno, most important factor to determining whether or not you should reach out to a website to request a link. The subject of a website should closely relate to the subject or industry that your client is within. If your client sells bicycles, no point in targeting websites that promote the benefits of filing for bankruptcy, no matter how indebted their deadbeat “occupied” customers are.

Think of relevance like a tree. Your client’s industry is the trunk, and related industries are the branches. Bicycles may be the main topic, but branching off of that are physical fitness, health, cardiovascular health, fitness apparel, and fitness diet plans. These are all items someone who is interested in purchasing those bikes will also be looking at.

 Sites to Avoid:

Spam may be considered a delicacy by the Hawaiian culture, but musubi aside, spam on the internet is bad bad bad. Sites stuffed with Google Adsense exist simply to make money from showing ads, not by creating quality content. Avoid these sites, as they are often short-lived and quickly identified by the search engines as low-authority sites. These will pass on very little link juice, and since the end goal is to fill up that link cup, choose wisely!

Sites with porn or gambling are certainly entertaining, but will post links to absolutely anything. They are more hurtful to your client’s business than helpful unless your client sells assless chaps or poker tables. Or assless chaps AND poker tables. Despite your personal fashion and recreational tastes, these sites devalue your website’s credibility and should be avoided at all costs.

 

Sites with a ton of outbound links are less than desirable as well. A site has only so much link juice to give. If a page has more than 10 links, Google will frown its giant Big Brother frown and give you less juice. Juuuuice give me juiiiice.

 Good Tip: If you have to think twice about whether or not a site is relevant or morally appropriate, pass it up. Your client may not thank you, but they also would never have to know you considered getting a link from HotGuysInTopHats.com.

 

Stay tuned for Part Two, coming soon!

Published by Miki DeHaven on December 6th, 2011 in Did You Know, General Information, Link Building, Search Marketing & Optimization