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…)

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.

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

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?

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.

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Search Meets Social

We’ve seen developments of internet search becoming more social over the course of the last year. We’ve seen YouTube become the second most widely used Search Engine. We’ve seen Google start adding real-time status updates to their index. We’ve even seen the announcement of Google’s “+1″ that aims to work similar to a Facebook like. However, today we see a completely new dimension to social impacting search.

Today Bing rolled out a new change to their search results. Bing is now leveraging social interaction (specifically with Facebook) in their search results. Much like the Google +1, this tells you if people you know, and even those you don’t, have liked a particular page. Check out the announcement video from Bing.

What does this mean for small businesses

Plainly said, social is something you must pay attention to, and more than making sure you have a Facebook page or a Twitter profile. Rather, if you’re going to compete in the current realm of Internet visibility, you must start thinking socially in how you approach your marketing. (more…)

SEO is more…

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is much more than simply keyword stuffing, link building, and code optimization, though each of these is a part of the overall strategy of SEO.

This week Google launched what it calls Google Instant Search. If you haven’t heard what this is, you can learn more through this video. While this change does make the job of organic SEO different than it has been in the past, it is still a very relevant process.

Matt Cutts from Google explains some of why SEO is going to be around for years to come…this is coming from the folks who are supposedly making it impossible. Check out the video.

What I really appreciated about what Matt had to say here is that SEO, but probably more properly labeled Internet Marketing, is so much more than simply getting your site and ranked. Proper website marketing is about user experience.

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SEO as a part of SEM

Have you ever wondered what the benefit of SEO was if you can get traffic through SEM? If so, you’re in good company, as many Internet Marketing Professionals even struggle with this concept.  Unfortunately an “us versus them” mentality has developed, and it’s hurting everyone involved.

Let’s start with a bit of the basics:

Search Engine Marketing, otherwise known as SEM or PPC, is a great way of getting some traffic quickly. Depending on your product and the channel through which you’re marketing, you can get laser sighted your audience, and gain some great business.

Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) on the other hand, is working with your website to gain visibility through Search Engines without paying the search engine to list you. This is a very important concept for having your site and/or blog listed in such a way your target audience sees it.

Us AND them…

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Localization

No, this is not an article about the GPS enabled apps we find on more and more phones.  Rather, let’s explore an increasingly popular topic among web marketers: Local Search Marketing.

By definition, local marketing is targeting your Internet Search Marketing efforts on the geography near where your business is located.  Using tools and sites like Google Maps, Four Square, Yelp, and many others, businesses are able to market specifically to their target market.

The question I keep hearing is if this type of marketing is for everyone.  While this is a great strategy for success for brick and mortar businesses, more and more companies are moving virtual.  Also, we see the world is continually shrinking through continually growing use of the Internet.  With that said, some businesses are well adept local marketing.  If your business’s primary source of income comes from traffic through your storefront, then yes, this is the correct focus of marketing for you.

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