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No SEO or New SEO?

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Is SEO No More?

Google’s Hummingbird algorithm update has created quite a stir in the realm of SEO. Some have even gone as far as to say that SEO is dead. In reality, SEO is far from being “dead”, in fact, SEO has changed quite drastically. Google and other major search engines are shifting away from isolated keyword-centric relevancy and run-of-the-mill directory submissions and are focusing on broader keyword categories as well as quality, shareable, and relevant content.

SEO Process

Relevancy of Keywords

With the recent algorithm change, many have questioned whether keywords still matter in the process of SEO. Keywords are still a significant part of the overall SEO process; however, search engines will not be looking for them in isolation.

When we mention keywords, the idea of a specific search-term may come to mind. With the implementation of Hummingbird and the other algorithm changes, the idea of keywords encompasses a broader category. Keyword qualifiers are an important aspect to consider when researching keywords. Qualifiers refer to the words in a keyword phrase that specify time, quality, location, and user intent. Though you want to keep a general category in for keywords, qualifiers will be important in more specific landing pages. For example, if you’re operating an online store for shoes, searchers will most likely be looking to research/purchase a specific product and will use query a specific term, such as, “buy canvas shoes.”

Are Content and Linking all That Matter?

As mentioned earlier, content is king of the SEO and digital marketing realm. Is this all you have to do? Just create content and share it? Even though this is a keystone of the new SEO strategy, it’s not an “end-all-be-all” solution. Though the SEO process is changing drastically, it’s still a complex machine that requires several working parts to produce results.

Long gone are the days of simply just submitting URLs to directories. Linking now focuses on creating unique and shareable content and disseminating it through reliable sources. Rather than thinking of this process as link building, it should be thought of as link earning. Links can be earned through sharing unique content that provides value to the reader, such as how-to-guides and infographics (ensure that they are relevant to your topic).

Conclusion

Despite the SEO world being shaken, it is here to stay. The entire SEO process still maintains traditional elements such as keywords, linking, etc., but they must be looked at from an updated viewpoint. Keywords must be imagined in broad categories that can encompass a variety of keywords rather than one specific term. Link earning strategies should focus on creating unique and shareable content that provides value to the reader and that is disseminated to reliable, trustworthy sites. With these parts in play, you’ll be able to produce a workable SEO plan for the updated digital space.

Have any questions about the new SEO process? Contact us today or leave a comment!

Link Building: Then and Now

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Link building has always been an important aspect of SEO and, with the latest algorithm changes, still is. However, long gone are the days of simple mass directory submissions and overly-optimized content made for search engines. Even though these tactics may garner a smidgen of link equity, it will not suffice in the world of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm change and the direction the search engine is taking.

Google and the other major search engines are shifting their ranking factors to include content that is original, relevant, readable, and shareable. Therefore, it is imperative to take the time and effort to develop great content that will improve your search rankings, industry knowledge, and reputation.

Bridging Link Building and Measurement

While going through this infographic, keep in mind that to really understand any content’s impact and the significance of your linking opportunities, you need to measure. When you see a site that might make a good linking opportunity, be sure to check its domain and page authorities as well as what that site is linking to. Again, you’re evaluating the opportunity’s overall value.

Another good measurement to employ is looking at the bounce rate of pages that your content is on. Google defines bounce rate as “the percentage of visits that go to only one page before exiting”. If your bounce rate is high, not many visitors are staying on your site. There are several factors that can affect bounce rate but content is one of them. Check out the infographic below for more details!

link building services in Reading, Pa - DaBrian Marketing
Have any questions about link building or content development? Contact us today or leave a comment below!

A Guide to Data-Informed SEO Storytelling

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How our SEO Tools led us Astray

Experience has shown that for a large portion of business owners, a glaring issue exists with the accepted perception of search engine optimization and the plethora of assistive software suites. Everyone seems to tout that high rankings and “the top spot on Google” are the primary goals associated with an SEO campaign, so vendors make solutions to fit those expectations. The problem is that these tools are proving ineffective at impacting businesses’ actual goals and objectives because they don’t help answer some fundamental questions, including:

  • Why is the business choosing to explore search engine marketing tactics?
  • Why are high rankings the primary goal?
  • In what way(s) do rankings specifically impact future marketing efforts?
  • How will SEO be justified from a budgeting standpoint?
  • Where is the connection between SEO and more leads and sales?

Getting Back to Basics with Goals and Objectives

The first step toward finding the answer to the questions above falls to outlining goals and objectives. Generally speaking, these goals and objectives help businesses enhance their “kwan” (And yes, that was a Jerry Maguire reference!). An example of a business goal would be to grow sales. An example of an objective would be to grow sales among new customers through organic search traffic by 25% of the next 12 months. Note the distinct differences here. While goals are very general statements, objectives provide additional context with which appropriate metrics can be identified.

It is critical that all key stakeholders agree and sign-off on the business goals and objectives because they’ll form the foundation for the next step toward data-informed storytelling: identifying Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Regardless of whether you work for an agency or an in-house marketing team, it always boils down to, “Did we make money or lose money as a result of our efforts?” For that, proper measurement planning is essential.

KPI Mapping that Aligns with Goals and Objectives

KPIs represent the way by which progress is measured regarding a marketing campaign. When defining these metrics, it’s important to also identify reasonable thresholds. That way, appropriate action can be taken if the numbers fall above or below your expectations. By aligning the KPIs with the aforementioned goals and objectives, it will help the key higher-ups to see SEO’s tangible value. Figure 1 (below) shows a very generic mapping of a goal and objective with a possible choice of KPI. If you complete this process, it will give you a better understanding of what data needs to be collected to show the impact the SEO is having on your business.

KPI mapping for Sales Growth
Figure 1 is a simplified version of mapping sales growth for new customers via organic search traffic and potential outcomes from this audience.

The Case for a Measurement Plan

The fact of the matter is that with all of this data making its way into your SEO campaigns, you’re going to need analytics to effectively capture your metrics and provide a way to visualize progress (and tell a truly impactful story). This will require an approach and a plan of action to accurately collect the data necessary for reporting. One of the most simple, but effective approaches can be found on Occam’s Razor By Avanish Kaushik. Just be sure to thoroughly document what data you’re collecting, how, why, and provide an example of the output. It should help everyone not only understand what you’re trying to show, but also offer them the chance to make changes to the approach if necessary.

Analytics Implementation

Google Analytics is a commonly used solution for analyzing this type of information. It’s important that you implement the measurement plan accurately and evaluate the data that’s being collected for reporting. A good place to start is the setup checklist and starter guide provided by Google. There are also numerous videos available on the Google Analytics YouTube channel.

Reporting

Using GA’s more advanced features as our primary example, there are multiple opportunities to not only streamline your reporting process, but also add deeper dimensions to your data-driven “story.” Creating advanced segments, custom filters, and dashboards can bring to light information you may not have otherwise seen. Exploring deeper into the data you’ve collected can make for more established insights, which lead to greater impact among your audience.

Custom SEO segments in Google Analytics

For your SEO campaigns, this could mean creating a dashboard showing correlations between site visit metrics and organic keywords or pages per visit organized by geographical location. With a little analytical know-how, you’ll have no problem tying your data back to your high-level goals and objectives.

SEO traffic data in Google Analytics
Conversions broken down by traffic source.

Figure 3 and 4 are example of items that might be found in your SEO performance dashboard.

Conclusion

There is a big misconception surrounding SEO for the average uninformed business owner, VP of marketing, or IT professional. On the frontlines, we always seem to hear business professionals talk about rankings, but they rarely care to understand why their business is even paying for or considering paying for SEO services. We still hear that the need for “visits” or more “hits” to the websites is the be-all end-all. Rather than the end in and of itself, SEO provides the means towards achieving unique business goals. The story of this journey from campaigns and tactics to business success is told through data, first and foremost.
Have your SEO tools and processes led you on the path to righteousness or dishonorable data? Let us know in the comments below!

Why Manage Local Listings?

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For any business, your customers need to be able to find you. You wouldn’t take any signage down from your building, would you? This includes the customer having quick and easy access to basic information such a telephone number and hours of operation. The majority of customers now turn to the internet to find this information; about 97% of customers use the internet to research business and products at a local level according to a study conducted by Bia/Kelsey. With this much purchasing intent at a local level, wouldn’t you like to boost your visibility?

Benefits of Local Listings

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the obvious benefit of managing local listings is to make your business visible to those customers searching at a local level. But what else is there? When internet searchers utilize a specific geographic location, they are usually close to converting (i.e. making a purchase). It is imperative to draw these searchers in to convert, whatever you choose to define as a conversion.

Local listing management allows you to stay visible.
Example of one of our Local Listings.

Speaking of drawing in searchers to convert, making sure you have top notch local listings can help you stand out among the plethora of competitors. A great way to ensure that your local listings are up to par is to develop a local listing strategy for your business.

Local Listing Strategy

The process of managing local listings sounds relatively simple, but there are actually many steps in this entire process that require attention. The first step in your local listing strategy is to verify your place of business. Google, Bing, and Yahoo! have similar processes in which the business must fill out an online form. The form automatically generates and will send a postcard with a verification PIN to the business address listed. Therefore, you must have a physical location to claim a local listing via these major search engines.
While implementing a local listing strategy to the fullest extent, you will be maintaining business information across several platforms. It is important to ensure that this information is consistent across the board so that your prospective customers can find the correct information. Not only will you have to provide the correct information initially, but you will have to maintain this information. If there is a large-scale re-branding or something as small as a new telephone extension number, remember to update your local listings.

Local Listings are Going Mobile

Knowing the importance of local listings, where will it go from here? Will it affect certain demographics? With the rapid growth of mobile searching, business information will have to be available at a local level to be seen by this growing demographic. Just to explain this point by some numbers: According to Google, 95% of smartphone users look for local information specifically. Knowing this, local listings can be a significant source of traffic and potential customers. In conjunction with local listings management, it may be a good idea to create a mobile site or configure your current desktop site to fit a mobile screen. As mobile usage continues to rise, it will be critical to stay on top.
Have any questions about local listings management? Contact us today or leave us a comment below!

Mobile SEO: A Crash Course

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Why is mobile SEO important?

The sight of someone peering down at a smartphone, tablet, or other mobile device is all too common, but it’s not simply just a fad. Mobile is the new way that information is extracted from the vast landscape of the internet quickly and efficiently. With the rise of users of mobile devices, it is becoming imperative that businesses prepare for the sharp increase in mobile traffic by optimizing for it..

There are many reasons why mobile SEO is important. One of the more obvious reasons, as with traditional SEO, is that visibility on the major search engines is crucial to businesses that participate in ecommerce. Rankings on search engines are important, but what about driving sales? According to Moz and Gartner, total purchases made on mobile devices reached $6.7 billion last year and are projected to reach approximately $31 billion by 2015. Not only have mobile devices become a major first point-of-contact for consumers, but also they have proven to be a reliable sales point as well.

Introduction to mobile SEO and some general tips to start plan a successful mobile campaign.

How to Optimize for a Mobile Site

The YouMoz Blog (the hub of the Moz community) provides a comprehensive list of Google’s new best practices for mobile SEO. Google’s rules are not only a guideline for optimization through Google itself, but may help with optimization across other major search engines as well. Listed below are some major points to consider when starting any mobile SEO campaign:

1. Social media activity drives URL sharing

Consider the fact that smartphone users spend an average of 9 hours and 6 minutes per month on social networks. Being active in the social media realm should be a part of any link-building effort, including mobile and traditional.

2. Make mobile sites convenient and accessible

The whole point of mobile internet access is to browse the web for information wherever you are. Mobile sites must be prepared for this, whether it’s implementing responsive design or have having an entirely different URL for a mobile site so that information can be taken in quickly and conveniently.

3. Focus on local

It is very important to keep the idea of “local results” in mind when starting a mobile SEO campaign. This is especially important when focusing on business and retail searches; the vast majority of higher results will be the closest business or retail outlet to the user’s location.

Key Takeaways

It’s apparent that mobile users have established themselves as key players in ecommerce.As mobile traffic continues to increase it is crucial to target this ever-growing audience. By following Google’s best practices for mobile SEO, your optimization efforts should have positive results. Just like with traditional SEO, mobile SEO will require research, which while tedious, is necessary to increase your visibility. Keep in mind: some of the fundamental factors that result in solid mobile SEO results are implementing the proper URL structure and site design for your audience, being engaged in social media, and focusing on local searches.

Have any questions or concerns regarding mobile or traditional SEO? Please leave a comment below!

SEO Tips to Increase Visibility and Stop Content Jackers

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Most of the time when we talk to prospective clients about SEO, the first things they think of are keywords, descriptions, and page titles. Now, just about every marketing person on the planet thinks they’re an SEO expert. Yeah right, just like everyone that can code HTML is a web developer too. The point is that SEO goes well beyond descriptions and titles; in fact, SEO includes a number of factors that impact rankings and these factors are always changing.

With that said, I’m going to cover a few “off-page SEO” tips to increase organic search visibility and stop people for stealing your content without giving you credit for it.

Use Rich Snippets for SEO

Rich snippets are a type of structured data that allow webmasters to

mark up content in ways that provide information to the search engines. Depending on the scenario, the websites that leverage rich snippets see better results or enhanced results in the search engines. An example of enhanced results could be reviews or ratings in the results. In general, this can lead to better click-through rates. Schema.org provides several types of examples of data that can benefit from structured markup which includes people, products, reviews, businesses, events, and more. Google has a tool called “Structured Data Testing Tool” to preview or get help with markups. In my opinion, you should read more details on schema.org to understanding it better before implementing.

structured-data-tool

Improve your Load-Time

You want to minimize web server response times to limit slow page loads. Remember that response time is going to vary from page load to page load. If possible, I would recommend a good dedicated server and an onsite webmaster to proactively improve server response times. Whenever possible, I would also recommend optimizing images, but not at the risk of poor-quality or low resolution visuals. There are a number of solutions to help with this, from Smush.it™ to some of Adobe’s Products. As you’re programming your website, you should consider opportunities to combine/compact CSS, optimize the order of CSS, move items to the head of the document, etc. This will all help to improve load time, SEO, and the user experience. Load-time is a factor that’s associated with search rankings, and Google Analytics offers a direct link to their PageSpeed Insights to test your site’s pages.

Have a URL Strategy

When you redesign a website, it’s usually due to updated branding or to support new business related functionality on the site. The linking structure, internal site links, and link building are usually on the minds of the webmaster or SEO person, but it’s important that you carry over as much link equity as possible by using redirects, a custom 404 page, and canonical links. Canonical links help to communicate to the search engines which page should be credited as the original. You should also use absolute links (“https://dabrianmarketing.com/blog.html”) instead of relative links (“/blog.html”) in the programming to limit scraping or “jacking” of your content. Remember that this content should be consistent with your updated branding and still support your business’s needs.

Conclusion

In the development phrase of your redesign or continued SEO, you should consider the impact that technical items will have on your brand’s reach and visibility. Furthermore, it’s important to categorize your business and products / services with rich snippets. I would recommend that you update your XML sitemap and submit to search engines as well as directories to reinforce ownership. You can even take it a step further with a good copyright and terms of use policy.

Take a look at the off-page SEO, improve your URL strategy, try rich snippets and try the PageSpeed insight tool to limit the number of issues that might be adversely impacting organic search traffic.