Social Networking Coffee Hour – Episode 5
If you missed the Social Networking Coffee Hour, you’re in luck! We’re recording it and posting it to our YouTube channel for you to review.
During the fifth session of the Social Networking Coffee Hour, we discussed how to build your social headquarters.
Be sure to ask your questions. We have a dedicated forum on the Holistic Visibility Facebook Page to answering your questions.
Social Networking Coffee Hour – Episode 4
If you missed the Social Networking Coffee Hour, you’re in luck! We’re recording it and posting it to our YouTube channel for you to review.
During the fourth session of the Social Networking Coffee Hour, we discussed how to effectively manage multiple social networks through popular social aggregate tools.
Be sure to ask your questions. We have a dedicated forum on the Holistic Visibility Facebook Page to answering your questions.
What is Honest SEO?
SEO professionals are known in some circles as the “used car dealers” of Internet Marketing. I’ve spoken with many businesses who feel like they’ve been taken for ride just trying to get a website, which is about 90% tangible. It stands to reason why so many are skeptical of a service that is 90% intangible.
What is SEO and Why is it Important?
SEO is a passion of ours at Holistic Visibility. Why you ask? Because having a website is pointless if you don’t get traffic. Using paid Search Marketing is one tactic to get the traffic necessary to make your website worthwhile, but even that is benefited by SEO being it brings down your average cost-per-click.
Also, if your site isn’t ranking well, you’ll not receive the traffic you should. We wrote last week about why poor search ranking is really bad for your business as every position lower than #1 drops your CTR by 30-35%.
Learning Who Can Really Help
When it comes to working with any SEO professional, whether it’s an outsourced firm or hiring someone in-house, you must be able to tell who knows what they’re talking about. If you’re not familiar with SEO, which most business owners aren’t, how are you supposed to tell who really knows their stuff? Here are some helpful hints:
- Look at that person’s own website and/or blog. Are they ranking well? Are they doing what they recommend you do? If they’re not “practicing what they preach”, then the next logical question is: do this person/firm have the necessary skills to execute the theory they’re selling?
- Does the person practice white hat SEO or black hat SEO? There is a big difference between these two, and your long-term ranking success with be impacted by this. If the person doesn’t know the difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO, then run the other way. If they don’t think black hat SEO is bad, get out of the line of fire. Make sure to check out our SEO Strategies post for more on why this is so important. (more…)
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What will happen to MobileMe webistes and the iWeb App?
Earlier this year, Apple unveiled iCloud. This means that MobileMe is being discontinued and all of its users are being switched over to iCloud. For those of you that rely on MobileMe for website hosting, here are a few short FAQs to prepare you for the transition.
What happens to my MobileMe website?
In short, it goes…POOF! Apple has confirmed hat iCloud will not support the website hosting feature that so many have depended on in MobileMe. A short time after iCloud goes live, MobileMe will completely shutdown and you will need to find other options for your website.
What will happen to the iWeb Application?
No one knows for sure. I have heard a lot of speculation that the application will be discontinued, but that story hasn’t been made official yet. Even if iWeb is discontinued, you will still be able to use the old application. You should, however, consider moving to a more appropriate website management tool such as a content management system (CMS). We recommend using WordPress or Joomla.
I’m #2…and I’m happy with that!
As an SEO professional it is my job to gain small businesses better visibility in Google, Bing and other search engines. However, what most small business owners don’t understand is just how important WHERE they place on a page really is.
Old school theory stated if you are on the first page, especially if you’re in the first 3-5 results, you are doing well and you don’t need to worry about trying to increase your search ranking any further. However, this is old theory and has been debunked by a recent study by Slingshot SEO.
In this study it was found that websites who place #1 in search enjoy a CTR (click through rate) of 18.2%, meaning 18.2% of the time their website was displayed in a search, it was clicked on. That CTR drops exponentially as you go down the page.
SERP and CTR is negatively exponential
There Can Be Only One #1
What kind of effort are you putting into achieving that #1 spot? Sure, you may rank #1 for your brand, but are you ranking well for more competitive search terms your target market is likely using? If you already are #1, what does your conversion rate look like for the traffic you’re getting?
Face it, holding the #1 position is great, but if it doesn’t translate into increased revenue, it doesn’t really matter. So anyone seeking to build business online must use a balanced approach to achieve success.
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The SECRET to SEO – Understanding Social
Importance of Social to SEO is increasing
If you’ve read much of what we’ve written, you know we love Social Media. There is a lot being written right now about effectively leveraging social media for search engine optimization. However, is there really much factual support for social impacting search?
The Reality of Social SEO
At the time of the 2011 SEOMoz Search Engine Ranking Factors Study, social signals were not looked at as having a significant impact of SEO. This doesn’t mean it isn’t important, but simply that social currently does not significantly impact search ranking.
So if it doesn’t impact search, why is social so important? When it comes to marketing your business, people spreading your message is extremely important…these people are called brand advocated. Social signals look at how many times people have linked to your site through social interaction (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc).
The key to social signals is giving people a social friendly site. Being social friendly, in part, means giving visitors social buttons on your site so they can easily share your content. Next it means giving people content they want to share. These are two of the biggest keys to a social friendly site.
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The SECRET to SEO – Links are Queen
We’ve been discussing the so-called secrets to SEO. Last week we discussed how content is King for SEO. Well if Content is King, links are the strong supporting Queen. Any man in a powerful position who is honest will give praise to the woman who has helped him get there.
This is no different with SEO. Content determines what your site is relevant for, but links get that content to the top of search engines; it’s the supporting Queen.
In fact, according to the SEOMoz 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors Study, links account for about 42% of the algorithm search engines use to determine placement. Knowing this means website owners cannot ignore getting links back to their site if they want to achieve quality placement for non-branded keywords.
Link Building 101
While some so-called SEO experts develop programs that “make it easy” to build links, effective link building strategy is never as easy as buying an automated software. These usually send spam requests to website owners, or attempt to leave spam comments on blogs. Both of these seldom result in quality links actually being built. Let’s look at some other link building strategies:
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The SECRET of SEO – Content is King
Over the years I’ve watched Search Engine Optimization, the phrase “content is king” has continued to be one that is prevalent. In the past this has meant that he who has the most content wins. However, the application of this particular saying has changed greatly.
According to the SEOMoz 2011 Search Engine Ranking Factors Study, content accounts for roughly 26% of the search algorithm. While it seems that a quarter of the algorithm isn’t much, especially compared to the 42% links play in the algorithm, without proper content the other factors are a moot point. The content on your site is the signal Search Engines use to determine relevance to the search term where you want greater presence.
How is Content Ranked?
Keyword Factors From 2011 SEOMoz Study
Content is currently ranked on several factors. One of the most common is your keywords being used in the content itself. Then you have appropriate placement in HTML tags throughout the page, using the keywords in bolds, and so forth.
This is the same kind of stuff SEO experts have been using for several years. However, keyword density, placement, proximity and prominence are no longer enough. As part of the 2011 study, SEOMoz took a look at what experts foresee becoming more important in the future. One of those factors is the perceived value to the site/page’s visitors.
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The SECRET to SEO Success
How many times have you seen websites promoting the “secret” to search engine presence? Some will tell you if you follow a formula for putting together a website. Others will tell you if you leave spam comments on blogs with links back to your site you’ll increase your search performance. In the end, most of these leave you feeling frustrated and like it’s a big mystery how to really perform well in Search Engines.
SEO Is Not Really a Secret, It’s a Science
How to gain visibility isn’t really a secret, but it’s a science mixed with a little art, and it’s relatively easy to learn the science…at least in terms of information being available. SEOMoz released last month their biennial study on the factors that impact search placement. Over the next several blog posts we’re going to unpack some of what that study showed, and we’ll show you how to better perform in the search engines.
You need to learn more. If you actually want to do well, you’ll need to learn more about what we’re going to discuss. This can be done by reading books like SEO Warrior or by reading through the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.
Ranking Factors according to 2011 SEOMoz Study
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Social Networking Coffee Hour – Episode 3
If you missed the third Social Networking Coffee Hour, we’ve added the recording to our youtube channel.
At this Social Networking Coffee Hour, we discussed how to measure your social media marketing’s effectiveness. We strongly believe that what gets measured, gets improved.
Be sure to ask your questions. We have a dedicated forum on the Holistic Visibility Facebook Page to answering your questions.
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