Content is King

Most of you have probably heard the saying "content is king" and it really is becoming even more important than it has ever been.

Without content SEO becomes very difficult. You need great content on your site and you need to distribute your content in order to generate back links, drive traffic and increase your brand recognition.

Many businesses find it difficult to produce content as they don't see the value in it.

There are many types of content which you can create which are useful in different situations.

Articles are typically 500+ words around a subject. Articles can be factual or amusing. I have found that the types of articles people share and republish the most are Top 10 Lists and How To articles.

Press releases are also good content pieces, PR can cover news about your business, sector white papers and your thoughts on industry news.

A very popular type of content are blog posts, these are typically more informal and often have more of a personal point of view. Writing on your own blog or a practice known as guest blogging is very a popular way to increase brand recognition, reach or target audience and generate valuable back links. Other types of content which are similar to blog posts are micro blogs which are typically posted on social media sites like Twitter, where you only have 140 characters.

Slideshows are another great way to share your content, this is because you can create visually appealing content and share this on document sharing sites, for others to embed the slideshow on their site.

Slideshows can also be converted into videos which is another type of content. With YouTube one of the most visited sites in the UK, video production and distribution is a no brainier for promoting your business.

Podcasts are another very under utilised type of content this can be a great way to promote your company.

Infographics are also a popular type of content. People like visuals, and this type of content is easy to get people to share on sites, particularly with Pinterest becoming so popular.

Really useful and interesting content can drive traffic to your site, rank well in the search engines and generate back links.

Spending time to invest in quality content is worthwhile and with the recent Google algorithm updates aimed at combatting web spam the only thing to do is put on your thinking cap and get started on creating something that will excite, enrage or entertain.

Link Types

Link building is an important part of SEO, and is becoming increasingly difficult as Google looks to minimise spam and maximise quality. One way to ensure your website thrives over others is to build a diverse and varied back link profile.

Here are a selection of different types of links, can you think of any others?

Miscellaneous Links:
There many types of links ones I couldn't classify include links are found on private blogs, links from resource pages, university links, link exchange pages, links found in the footer and/or sidebar of private websites and referral links.  These often make up the majority of the links pointing to a website. These ‘other’ types of links build up over time, giving the site more authority and value in the eyes of the search engines.

Internal Links:
Links created internally to connect pages within a site. These links are important as they facilitate the user navigation of a site. A limit should be placed on how many internal links each single page of a website has, typically less than 100.

Affiliate Links:
Links created from partner sites are called affiliate links, these links are from another website owned or partnering with the same company.

Article Links:
Articles are a good medium for advertisement and are used to drive traffic. Articles deliver a long term benefit with permanent backlinks which can grow naturally when content is re-published.

News Article Links:
These link are built naturally when a company is mentioned in the news. These links can be of great value, especially when they come from authority sites such as the bbc.co.uk which has a domain authority of 100.

Wiki Article:
Wiki sites such as  Wikepedia, which is the 4th most visited website in the world (Source: Alexa.com), are considered high authority sites and are used to create quality backlinks and drive traffic.

Directory Links:
Directories are the places where people go to look for websites in specific sectors, they are popular in the online world. Directories must be carefully selected to offer SEO benefit as many have been abused in the past.

Press Release Links:
A well written Press Release can be a good source of authority backlinks and traffic.

Foreign Site Links:
Foreign links are links which come from websites which are not written in English. The benefit of having a foreign site link is it makes your backlink profile more diverse. The problem with this type of link is a foreign site could be poor quality or spam and this can have a negative effect on the sites linked to.

Forum Posts:
Forums are a good source of backlinks, especially when the forum is related because it helps Google create an association between the forum subject and the site. Forums are also a good source of relevant traffic and the visitor is more likely to convert.


Social Bookmark Links:
This is a link from a site like Digg, or StumbleUpon where you bookmark the page for others to find.

Social Media Links:
Social links are links from sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, they are good for traffic and also get pages ranking well if the links are re-published a high number of times.

Image Links:
Image links are backlinks from an image as opposed to text. These are sometimes sponsored or paid for links, but not always. Google will often pick up images and show them in the Google Images part of the search engine so they can be a good source for backlinks and traffic.

How to Use Social Monitoring Tools for Link Building

Link building is a very important part of SEO, links are how you let the world know about your site. Not all links are equal. Some links are very valuable others are mediocre and others are really bad news. Obviously you want as many of the good links as possible.

Now you probably want to know “How do I find good link building opportunities?”

Many link builders use a technique known as competitor back link analysis. This is where you use tools to identify links pointing to your competitors and aim to get links from places where they have achieved links.
Another way to find places you might be able to attain links from is by monitoring the web for your brand, or for people talking about your products and services offered and looking for opportunities to link.

One way you can do this is by using social media monitoring tools. Tools which monitor social media will present real time conversations which could provide an opening for you to join the conversation and add something to it.

A good place to begin is to see what people are talking about by using Twitter search. You can use the search to look for people who are talking about things related to your business. Often people tweet links to websites that have a particular subject matter, these websites could be the ideal places for you to release content or join the conversation.

There are also plenty of free social monitoring tools that will help you identify where people are discussing related topics. One good tool to find websites which are discussing the topics which relate to your business is Google Alerts.

Google Alerts lets you track web mentions of any word or phrase and is one of the fastest ways to discover new content that gets published on the web. You can get alerts to your inbox of via RSS and you can tailor this to filter results by media type (News, Blogs, Video, Discussion and Books).

There are quite a lot of free and paid tools to help you see what people are talking about online and these will help to identify places where links can be built. The beauty of this method is you are going to be discovering themed links. Building links from sites which are related to your subject matter have always been better than links from non-related websites. These links are very valuable and can offer greater SEO benefit over a link from a site which is based around a non-related subject.

Using Forums for Link Building

What is a Forum?
A forum is an Internet message board where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. They are great places to connect with others who have similar interests to you. Forums are typically centred on a specific topic and therefore are ideal for getting expert advice and finding people with a certain interest.

What is a Forum Signature?
A forum signature is a piece of text (sometimes an image too) which can be placed underneath any comments you make in forum posts. This is normally created in the control panel of your profile and can be set to automatically insert underneath all of your comments. Typically people include a link back to their website and give some details about their name and job title.

The Problem with Forum Links
The problem with forum links is spammers. For years underhand link builders have used forum signatures to create keyword rich anchor text links to websites without providing participating in the discussion.

How to Use Forums Correctly
Forums are ideal places to display your knowledge and expertise on a particular topic. You must however, be sure you are joining a community in order to share or give knowledge; a spammer can be spotted a mile off. If you are there solely to advertise this will be apparent and your efforts will not be appreciated by the community. You can also get banned by the forum moderators.

Use forums as a place to support your company by sharing your knowledge and creating a favourable impression to members of your community. Forums now often have a bad reputation among the SEO community as in the past they have been used by spammers only to get a link from the forum signature.

The best way to approach using forums is to look at it as a branding/PR exercise. If you get a link back it’s a bonus. If you are providing useful advice and information to the members of the forum there is a high chance people will visit your website.

There is also evidence that brand mentions do have some SEO benefit, so even if the forum does not provide a live link it is still worth participating in very relevant forums as these can still drive relevant traffic to your site. Also the better you can answer a question the more likely it is your answer will appear in SERPs

Top Tips for Forum Participation

• Stick to forums that are related to your area of expertise
• Ensure your profile is up to date with all your correct contact information
• Help members by answering questions to the best of your knowledge
• Do not spam
• Engage with forum moderators and those with a high post count

What Questions Should I Ask New SEO Clients

Here are a list of questions I would ask new SEO clients before starting work?

1.    What analytics tracking do you use?
           a.    Can we have admin access?
2.    Do you have Google Webmaster Tools set-up?
3.    Who are your main competitors?
4.    Who is your ideal customer?
5.    What type of customer do you not want?
6.    Which are the top search terms you would like to rank for?
7.    What are your short and long term goals?
8.    Do you have any other domains which you own? (Specifically this refers to issues with duplicate content, proper use of redirects, linking opportunities.)
9.    Do you have any strategic partnerships we can leverage?
10.    Who manages your website?
           a.    How easy it is for us to make onsite changes?
           b.    What is the process when requesting on site changes?
           c.    What are the expected lead times when making changes to the site?
11.    How often can you provide us with content?
          a.    Do you have a resource who can keep us updated with company news/updates?
          b.    Are you able to create the following types of content:
                    i.    Articles
                    ii.    PR
                    iii.    Slideshows
                    iv.    Videos
                    v.    Podcasts
                    vi.    Infographics
12.    Have you done any SEO work before?
13.    What other forms of marketing do you do? PPC, Email, Display, Affiliate, PR, Print, Social Media?
14.    What do you want people to do when they get to your site?
15.    Which geographic location do you wish to target/focus on?
16.    What are your success metrics for the campaign?
17.    Anything else you think would be useful that has not been covered?

SEO Ranking Elements

When looking at why certain sites rank above others I would investigate the following metrics:

URL: The current page ranking for the specified term.

Page Authority: This predicts the likelihood of a single page to rank well. The higher the score the greater chance that page has of ranking well. Page Authority is worked out on a 100-point, logarithmic scale. Therefore, it's easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it would be to grow from 70 to 80.

Domain Authority: This predicts how well a website may perform in the search engines. It is useful for comparing one site with another. Again he higher the score the greater chance that website has of ranking well. Domain Authority is also worked out on a 100-point, logarithmic scale. Therefore, it's easier to grow your score from 20 to 30 than it would be to grow from 70 to 80.

On page content: Content is King in SEO and this column analyses how the ranking pages are utilising content on the page. Search engines use content to help identify what each page is about.

Internal Linking to/from the Homepage: Internal website linking is important to help link juice to flow around a website. Typically the most authoritative page on a website is the home page and should therefore successfully link to the pages on the site in a way that passes as much link juice as possible.

Anchor text used to link to the Homepage: Anchor text is the text that appears in the HTML code of a link e.g. the anchor text of this link would be engineering jobs:
 <a href="http://examplesite.com">engineering jobs</a>
Search engines use anchor text as a signal as to what the page being linked to may be about.

Domain Age and Sub-Domain Age: The age of a domain has a big impact on ranking ability this is because domain age cannot easily be faked. Older domains are likely to have more links pointing to them and will probably have built up a certain level of authority which comes with age.

Main Keywords Used On Page: The search engines use on page content to determine the relevance of a given page for a search query; the amount of times a term appears on the page can impact on the ranking of that page in the SERPS. The table counts up the main terms the page appears to be focusing on.

Total Links to Root Domain/Sub-Domain: Search engines use links as a way to determine the most relevant page for a search term. The more links you have pointing to a page the higher the chance of ranking well for a term, although there are other factors which also impact the value of links. This includes the anchor text used in the link and the quality of the site which the link has been generated from.

My thoughts on domain masking and frames

The problem with domain masking is it creates perceived duplicate content in search engines, particularly Google. Because Google and the other search engines do not want to display multiple copies of the same content, they will likely choose one or the other of the URLs to index. Worse yet, if Google runs into a lot of duplicate content on your domains, it might decide one or both are not worth visiting very often.

Generally you may want to mask the URL of your content if you are providing content which is on another domain but you don’t want your users to know they are leaving your site. This can be done using frames. It is well known frames are not well liked by the search engines. Also the content of the iframe belongs to the site which you insert in the iframe, not to your site and therefore will not be taken into account for rankings.

If you are masking URLs with <frameset> then there are some things you can do to optimise these pages for SEO.

Use the noframes tag – almost your only search engine friendly alternative to frames. Your optimised content goes between the noframes tag. The noframes element contains content that should only be rendered when frames are not supported by your browser and it’s the equivalent of the ALT attribute for images.

Some Recent Adwords Updates

Updated Display Advertising Options in AdWords March 2012
Display now has its own tab.

The contextual engine has been revamped. This means you can fine-tune the performance of your contextual campaigns down to individual keyword level. There is also a way to visualise the reach of your campaigns, and see how that reach is impacted by combining multiple targeting types, such as keywords, placements, topics, interests or re-marketing.

Flexible Reach July 2012
In the next couple of weeks, AdWords will include a new targeting option called “Flexible reach.” Flexible reach allows you to select any combination of multiple targeting selections at the ad group level, plus the control to combine different methods for targeting and bidding at the ad group level.

AdWords Editor June 2012
AdWords Editor 9.8.1, now includes the ability to add and edit dynamic search ads and product listing ads, as well as quickly and easily modify location targets.

Search Funnels
Search Funnels work automatically with AdWords Conversion Tracking. Search Funnels can show you the full search path your customers take prior to purchasing or “converting” on your site, this includes assist clicks and assist impressions (any search ad impression that was not clicked and happened prior to a conversion).

Multi-Channel Funnels
Digital attribution is the process of assigning credit to the variety of online interactions that happen before a conversion. These interactions could include display ads, paid or organic search, email campaigns, affiliate programs, social network posts, and other digital interactions. Today, many marketers by default use “last click” attribution, assigning all of the credit to the last interaction before a conversion. By understanding the full path to conversion and giving credit to all interactions, better marketing campaign decisions can be made.
August 1, 2012, Website Optimizer will no longer be available as a standalone product. From that date forward, you can use Content Experiments in Google Analytics to test your site content.

Updates to Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator April 2012
Improvements to the Keyword Tool include the ability to view keyword ideas grouped by themes. With the Traffic Estimator a graph has been incorporated to better gauge traffic and bid estimates visually, which depicts newly supported ad group drafts. And now, when users have settled on the visual draft of their campaigns, this draft can be added directly to your account.

Should I Use a Microsite?

What is a Microsite?

A microsite is a 1 to 5 page site on a specific subject. A microsite should be an extension of your main site. When you break out products or services into their own domain name with specific content, meta data, and all backlinks to each micro site are specific, you get the answer to what the search engines are looking for. The microsite should also link back to your main site.

A microsite can work well for specific marketing campaigns, however whether to use them or not depends on the business goals and objectives.

When to Use a Microsite
Microsites are useful when you are in a competitive industry and there is a decent amount of search volume present to make a microsite worthwhile.

A microsite is not a one page site or a splash/squeeze. Your microsite must have enough relevant content and transparency to satisfy Google you are committed to providing a good user experience.

Benefits of Microsites

Microsites are useful for PPC campaigns as you can increase CTR to increase your quality score and reduce click costs. You can also achieve higher conversion rates as the messaging can be tailored specific for the target audience, however this can also be done on specific pages too.

As microsites are more focused you become a specialist, which can set you apart from competitors. Being more focused can also help to improve your search engine rankings as microsites can be better targeted. Also microsites can provide links back to the main site to support SEO efforts there.

A smaller more agile site strategy around profitable search queries or micro brands can be more cost effective and efficient than redeveloping, expanding or building out your primary site. This would depend on how your website development works.

Microsites can be a great idea for specific targeted promotions, but whether you use them depends on your brand, your time and your budget.

Benefits of Keeping Content on One Domain

By keeping all content on one domain there is less work needed for optimisation as you are only building the authority of one domain. By driving all traffic to one domain this can help to increase your authority in the eyes of Google as you will have higher visitor numbers.

Any links built to the site will increase the overall ranking of the site even if they are built to internal pages. Sometimes separate sites do not make sense from a usability perspective it is better for user experience to remain in one place.

Should You Use a Microsite?

Whether to use a microsite depends on your business goals. There are benefits for creating a microsite and there are benefits to keeping content on your principal site. In order to make the decision you need to analyse the business goals against the pros and cons.

Link Building Strategies

For search engines links are the routes between pages. Using sophisticated link analysis, the engines can determine how pages are related to each other and in what ways.

Search engines use links as votes they help to determine which pages are important and popular. The engines themselves have refined link data to a fine art, and complex algorithms create evaluations of sites and pages based on this information.

Links aren't everything in SEO, but search professionals attribute a large portion of the engines' algorithms to link-based factors. Through links, engines analyse the popularity of a website & page based on the number and popularity of pages linking to them, but also metrics like trust, spam, and authority.

Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trusted sites, while spammy sites receive very few links from trusted sources. Authority models, suggest links are a very good way of identifying expert documents on a given subject. It is harder to generate quality authority links and therefore these links are given more weight by the search engines when ranking pages. The Hilltop Algorithm discusses how authority links can help determine authority. It demonstrates how links from relevant related non-affiliated sites will help with ranking. And also highlights the relevance of anchor text and the quality of the linking site.

The focus on link analysis makes link building critical to getting the attention of search engines and is required in order to rank highly. 

10 Ways to Evaluate Links

1 - Links Higher Up in HTML Code Are More Powerful

All things being equal siteA till outrank B, which will outrank C. Other tests show the power of the higher link will win over other ranking factors such as the title tag.

2 - External Links are More Influential than Internal Links

3 - Links from Unique Domains Matter More than Links from Previously Linking Sites
This indicates the importance of link diversity. Increasing links from a site which has already linked is not as valuable as a link from a new site.

4 - Links from Sites Closer to a Trusted Seed Set Pass More Value
This is related to trust, links from trusted sites pass more link juice. Links which flow from a trusted seed site will have more weight. Sites will benefit if links originate from highly trusted domains.

5 - Links from "Inside" Unique Content Pass More Value than Those from Footers/Sidebar/Navigation

6 - Keywords in HTML Text Pass More Value than those in Alt Attributes of Linked Images
The alt attribute of an image link is often treated as the anchor text of a link, although these pass less value than HTML text links.

7 - Links from More Important, Popular, Trusted Sites Pass More Value
Links from a less important page on a trusted site are more valuable than a homepage link from a lower quality site.

8 - Links Contained Within <noscript> Tags Pass Lower (and Possibly No) Value

9 - Pages with fewer links pass more value

Pages with fewer links are better than being linked to by a page with many links on it (all other things being equal).

10 - Pages that Link to Web Spam May Devalue the Other Links they Host

• Sites which link to spam and use poison keywords can lower the value passed through links.

• More popular sites that link to you will help your site to earn trust and authority.

• Local and topic specific links matter more than links from general off topic sites.

• The web is full of spam, links from low quality sites can lower trust. Conversely quality links from high trust domains will boost your authority.

• Your link profile can also determine your spam score. Linking to spam sites can devalue your site.

• The freshness of links also has an impact, the recency if links can help judge current relevance.

• Social links on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ have an impact but they are not the same as links.

Types of links

Natural links are given by sites who want to link to your content. These links require the creation of quality content and the ability to create awareness about it.

Manual links is when an SEO creates links. The SEO often provides a value proposition by explaining to the link target why creating the link is in their best interest.

Self-Created, Non-Editorial links is when an SEO creates links through guest books, forum signatures, blog comments, or user profiles. These links offer the lowest value, but can, in aggregate, still have an impact. In general, search engines continue to devalue these types of links, and have been known to penalise sites that solely pursue these links. Today, these types of links are often considered spammy.

Link building can also help to drive traffic. Links that send high volumes of direct traffic not only tend to provide better rankings, but also send targeted, visitors to your site.

Some ways to get links:

Get your customers, suppliers, partners to link to you.

Create a blog and add valuable, informative and entertaining content. Blogs have the ability to contribute fresh material on a regular basis and earn links from other sites who find the content useful.

Public relations can be a great way to earn links, get the attention of the press. You could run a competition, release a new product or make a controversial statement.

Getting listed in relevant directories can help with ranking and driving relevant traffic.

Beware when paying for links as the search engines look to devalue these links.