Our personal SEM achievments date back to late 1994 with some of the first search engines like WebCrawler, Lycos and Yahoo search listings manipulation.
Our SEO company services have grown and evolved to…
Pierre Zarokian, May 11, 2012 - Google recently rolled out three major algorithmic updates that have left many websites reeling. In between two Google Panda refreshes (on April 17 and…
Bloggers and site owners are always looking at how to rank high rank high in Google. The answer is that there are no short cuts. People who buy into this may think they are getting the deal of a life time, but in fact it takes dedication, motivation and solid work to get nowhere in Google. Anyone who is earning over $1000 a month will tell you that. Every blogger started with no traffic, no clicks and no affiliates, but with a little patience and time the dollars stared to turn over. Passive income is a myth.
Anyone will tell you that Google does not favor new sites and this is why if you are brand new to internet marketing and you have a new blog you won’t see it ranked near the top. A lot of people are starting to buy aged domains. Learn how to rank high in Google and you will find that your content will get indexed a lot quicker. If you go to places like Godaddy and other auction sites you may find some cheap deals. Make sure you check the backlinks because if the domain has been pandalized then you may find yourself in a spot of bother.
Once you have content on your site you have to start getting the word out and letting people know that you are out there. You have to leave your competitors in the dust and this is not always easy. There are many ways to do this and it’s best to experiment and explore different methods. Twitter and facebook have exploded into something huge. You can’t not have social media on your site. One way links are going to help you climb up the rankings. You don’t want to do this all at once. It is a slow process. Web Marketing 2.0 is also big at the moment. It enables you to really go big. The reason for this is that you will be promoting on large sites like hubpages and squidoo. These sites will not go into a sandbox because they have been going for some time. Once you have written an article on one of these sites then you need to promote it.
Blog networks have also become very popular and there are more and more of these popping up all over the place so this is another thing to watch out for. Google loves backlinks and this is how it ranks your pages, but it does not love cheap backlinks. Don’t be scammed by a site that says they will sell you over 1000 links at a ridiculous price. Remember there are no short cuts here, but if you stick it out there will definitely be a couple of rewards for you. You will need to study research on how to rank high in Google.
Learning how to rank high in Google is a passion of Todd’s who has been writing about the Internet for the last 19 years. To know how to rank high in Google is important to get ahead in the game!
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Whether you’re a veteran or a rookie online marketer, it’s imperative to audit your website and blog to ensure it has been optimized for social interaction, discussion and sharing. Applying social media optimization (SMO) to your content isn’t rocket science, but amidst other marketing priorities, it sometimes get buried or forgotten. Before you approve pushing SMO down on your priority list, audit this list of common mistakes to make sure your brand – personal or business – isn’t left looking foolish.
As a kid, Looney Tunes cartoons amused me. I recall feeling empathy for unlucky Wile E. Coyote. As I grew up, I became more entertained by the cunning and creative nature of Road Runner. Reality eventually set in that Wile E. Coyote wasn’t unlucky, he was just too eager and foolish.
When it comes to social engagement on your site, are you the Road Runner… or the Coyote?
You see, it’s not by chance or luck that users share, comment, click or otherwise socially engage with your content. There are distinct factors that influence and prevent these behaviors. To ignore the barriers would simply be foolish. Some barriers are more evident than others, so the first step is identifying the problems.
Top 13 Barriers to On-Site Social Media Engagement
Imagine that you’re on a website reading an article. It’s so great that you’re inclined to comment, share, follow, or subscribe. When…. BAM! You’ve hit a wall because the option isn’t apparent, you can’t find it after looking, it doesn’t do what you thought it would, or it requires more work and time than you’re willing to spend. Sound familiar?
The following 13 barriers present a wall between you and social engagement success. Read on to see if you’re guilty …and to find the remedy!
1. Missing or Excessive Social Sharing Buttons
Fix:Social share actions are often missing popular options (e.g. +1, Pinterest) or stacked with too many (7 or more) options. Your challenge is to find a happy medium that serves business objectives – drive traffic, improve SEO, and boost reader trust. Start by featuring the 2-4 most active buttons (including share counts) at the top of articles, product detail pages, gallery photos, and similar high value pages.
At the very end of the article include a full, succinct group of share links (up to 6 visible) with an option to expand for more actions if necessary. As a trendy alternative, consider using a floating social share bar like Digg Digg, Get Social, or Slick Social. It can eliminate the top and bottom redundancy and comes in handy for sharing mid-way on long articles – especially for Pinterest!
Do not use a “share” link with a pop-up or drop down menu displaying an abundance of options. This catchall inclusion over-stimulates users and deters more shares than it facilitates. Select a limited number of buttons (no more than six, ideally four or less) that align with your social media goals and then ensure their visibility to inspire action. (Common social share actions to consider: +1, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, Pinterest, and Delicious.)
Note: Tools like ShareThis and AddThis have been revamped with more refined and stylish display options. If you’re using those old tools, upgrade to the new code or chose a different widget. (Mashable uses ShareThis with their responsive web design; depending upon screen width, the social widget adjusts to appear at the top or as a floating sidebar.)
2. Comments Require Account Creation or Sign-in
Fix: Ease up on the form lock down. Allow users to rate and comment without creating an account. Collecting their name, email, and message should be sufficient to post. Forgotten passwords are a huge barrier to on-going engagement, so leverage OpenID and social sign-on tools to simplify the comment interaction process.
3. Missing By-Line (Author and Date) on Blog Posts
Fix: For any content that may shortly become out of date (e.g. news, technology guides, etc.), the date is a critical relevance factor. Similarly, the author drives perceived authority and credibility. Both factors impact a reader’s trust to socially engage with content. Always display a “by-line” including the post date (i.e. month, day and year) and the author’s first and last name at the top of articles. If you publish breaking news or multiple posts throughout the day, include the timestamp and time zone as well.
The author’s name should link to their profile page leveraging rel=me authorship HTML markup. Never display “guest” as a post author’s name. Even if a person guest posts just once on your site, configure an author bio page to summarize their credentials, feature their social accounts, and list their article contributions. Guest posts are excellent ways to extend reach beyond your typical social circles. Leverage it!
Regardless of guest or columnist authorship, make it easy for readers to identify, follow and mention authors in social shares. (Tip: Display the author’s Twitter username beside their name to boost this engagement.)
4. Missing or Irrelevant Image Thumbnail for Sharing the Page
Fix: Help content stand out with an engaging, legible, relevant image thumbnail on every page you create. (The site logo doesn’t count.) For social feeds like Facebook, Google+, or StumbleUpon, aggregators like Paper.li, and even your blog dashboard, thumbnail images play a crucial role in attracting attention, click-throughs, comments and shares.
A missing or irrelevant image also means you miss out on the traffic-driving power of popular image-sharing tools like Pinterest and Tumblr. Intentionally plan an image thumbnail with the social outlets and uses in mind. (Tip: JPG images 160 pixels wide x 120-160 pixels high tend to work best.)
To specify the default thumbnail displayed for social shares, consider leveraging the HTML markup options below. For the link tag and meta tag options, paste the code snippet into the head tags and specify the actual thumbnail URL. For microdata, simply add the attributes (highlighted red below) to your existing body and image tags. (Note: Don’t get sucked into adding a bunch of tags to your content for SMO. Title tag and meta description values generally pull fine for social sharing if you have valid HTML. I recommend using Microdata to specify image thumbnails since it’s effective for both SEO and SMO purposes.)
HTML Link: (Supported by Facebook Share and Yahoo! Enhanced Search)
< link rel="image_src" href="THUMBNAIL_URL_HERE" />
Open Graph (RDFa): (http://ogp.me)
< meta property="og:image" content="THUMBNAIL_URL_HERE" />
Microdata: (http://schema.org)
< body itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/article">
< img itemprop="image" src="THUMBNAIL_URL_HERE" />
< /body>
5. Sharing Buttons Not Fully Configured With Respective Content
Fix: Properly configure share buttons to include the page title, image thumbnail, and a shortened URL link. Especially for Twitter, ensure the site username, author username (if different), and relevant hashtags are included. Revisit the tools that generated your sharing widgets to review additional data options and settings available. Proper configuration helps to track social mentions, engage with advocates, and boost brand/author visibility.
Tip: Hashtag logic can be planned based on the post’s category. If you build site username and hashtags into the title tag, you’re also optimized for sharing via tools the user might be using like Buffer or Shareaholic.
6. Blah or Missing Meta Description
Fix: An enticing description is instrumental for click-throughs and further share amplification once posted on social networks. Don’t make users dream up an enticing description for you.
Do YOUR job: write an intentional, quality description under 150 characters that will entice users to click-through for more. Don’t repeat the title, as meta description only appears with the title tag, and don’t use an automated extract of the page’s first few sentences. Begin the description with an action like “learn” or “get inspired” followed by keyword topic highlights (headings are handy) that will compel a user to click-through and investigate further.
7. Icons Used for Page-Sharing and Social Accounts Look-Alike
Fix: Don’t make users think about what button they should click. Hesitation kills conversion. Just the other day I came across a [very popular] website using the same Twitter and Facebook icons for social sign-in, social accounts, and post sharing. How confusing is that?!
Strategically select, design, and place social icons where they are most likely to be understood and used. Style social accounts distinctly different from their smart button relatives and position them away (vertically and horizontally) from the page-sharing icons.
8. Article Page and Blog Dashboard (Above-the-Fold) Look the Same
Fix: Socially shared links pointing to a seemingly irrelevant location kills further amplification of the content. (This easily happens if a user shares a link to a home/dashboard post that some time later is no longer featured.)
Ensure your home and category pages are distinctly and intuitively different from post pages to avoid the confusion. Restrict the dashboard post descriptions to an enticing intro of 150-300 characters maximum and specifically style it differently. Borders, section headings, and multi-column formats help users intuitively make the distinction.
9. Social Actions Aren’t Mobile-Friendly
Fix: Most likely your social-savvy audience is mobile-savvy as well. Don’t forget about them! Tiny, compact share buttons, thin fields, and narrow text links make mobile social engagement an outright challenge. Apple recommends a minimum mobile target area of 44×44 pixels. Handset resolution varies, so plan target areas to be “thumb-friendly”.
Use social share widgets that use responsive design
Add padding to links and form input fields (e.g. padding 0.5em)
Add margin between clickable actions to avoid misclicks
Example CSS Media Query Syntax: (for insertion into an existing CSS file)
@media screen and (max-device-width: 480px) {
/* mobile-specific styles go here */
}
10. Twitter Feed Widgets with No Mention of the Username or Hashtag
Fix: It’s frustrating to see a Twitter feed and have no idea what’s filtering the posts. Clearly display the Twitter username and/or hashtag in the widget’s title and provide additional, proximate context to entice interaction. (i.e., Twitter chat hashtags and schedules, event hashtags, usernames of social community staff, etc.) Visual display of these filters also makes it easy for users to join and follow your social conversations from their preferred Twitter portal.
11. No Visible Comment Form on Blog Posts
Fix: The comment form should be immediately visible as a form at the very end of the article. Don’t require an action to reveal it, and don’t insert a massive amount of related content between the article and the comment form. Out of sight, out of mind.
12. Super Long Page Title
Fix: Don’t make users rethink the title for sharing. Unnecessary title cleanup consumes time that users could have otherwise interacted with or shared content. Long titles also present a feed scannability challenge resulting in lower click-through rates. (A shared link title should ideally wrap no more than 1.5 lines to optimize legibility.) Keep your title under 70 characters. It’s Google’s display limit in search results, and it’s an easily re-tweetable length.
Tip: Exclude post category and site name from the title tag. The category would be better served as a hashtag, and the site name as the Twitter username.
13. No Closing Call-to-Action (CTA) at the End of Blog Posts
Fix: End the post with a key takeaway followed by an actionable statement. In other words, now that they’ve read the content, what should they do? From an SMO standpoint, leverage the opportunity to entice the user to take a social action – rate, share, bookmark, comment, follow, subscribe, etc. (Only promote one or two actions. The more options suggested, the less likelihood you’ll have for conversion.) The action you recommend should be visible and proximate to the bottom of the article.
Tip: To bypass scrolling-down challenges, make the call-to-action text a link to the on-page bookmark (e.g., < a href=”#comment”>comment < /a> or < a href=”#socialshare”>share < /a>).
Implementing these fixes can help boost social engagement and avoid a user experience that runs your visitors into a dead-end wall.
Is your blog or website guilty of any of these barriers? Which of these are most likely to prevent you from socially engaging with content? Let us know in the comments below!
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Instagram, Facebook assure users everything is fine!
As previously reported, Facebook has purchased Instagram for $1 billion. The app is enormously popular, and being Facebook-owned will most likely make it even more so. Still, some users have a problem with the news, whether it be the expansion of their beloved community, Facebook privacy concerns, or whatever.
The whole thing is very interesting considering a recent survey found that Facebook users were rather annoyed by the plethora of Instagram pics that were already flooding their news feeds.
That’s really just a sign of how popular the service is, however, and until last week, it was only available for iOS. The Android version took off immediately, much to the ridiculous chagrin of some iOS users. Facebook’s 800 million+ user base should not do much to slow down its growth, even if some are leaving (or at least saying they will).
Here are a couple tweets that sum up a larger trend:
@savasavasava savainstagram: it’s like leaving a house I live in with people I love, because they turned the happy house into a bank.
The inevitable “how to leave Instagram” articles have been coming out of the woodwork since the news. Many of them are pointing to something called Instaport, which is presented as “a simple way to export all your Instagram photos to other social services or your local hard drive.” With a SEO Company
There are certainly many to choose from. Obviously Google+/Picasa web albums, and Flickr, but there is also Picplz (which I had been using on Android rather than caring if Instagram was available. It basically accomplishes the same thing, though it may not have quite as many effects). There’s PicYou, Lightbox, and plenty of others. Just Google “photo filter apps” and you’ll find plenty of options. There’s always room for other competitors to step up as well. What if Imgur (which anyone who uses Reddit is very accustomed to), were to add some features and mobile apps into their strategy?
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom shared some thoughts about the deal on the Instagram blog. “When Mike and I started Instagram nearly two years ago, we set out to change and improve the way the world communicates and shares,” he writes. “We’ve had an amazing time watching Instagram grow into a vibrant community of people from all around the globe. Today, we couldn’t be happier to announce that Instagram has agreed to be acquired by Facebook.”
“Every day that passes, we see more experiences being shared through Instagram in ways that we never thought possible,” he says. “It’s because of our dedicated and talented team that we’ve gotten this far, and with the support and cross-pollination of ideas and talent at a place like Facebook, we hope to create an even more exciting future for Instagram and Facebook alike.”
Don’t worry about Instagram shutting down and becoming simply a Facebook feature. At least for now (Things change. Ask picnik users).
“It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network,” says Systrom. “We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.”
“The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love,” he adds. “You’ll still have all the same people you follow and that follow you.You’ll still be able to share to other social networks. And you’ll still have all the other features that make the app so fun and unique. We’re psyched to be joining Facebook and are excited to build a better Instagram for everyone.”
Users and the media have weighed in with all kinds of opinions and speculation in the short time since the announcement.
Bruce Upbin at Forbes calls it “smart arbitrage”, and a defensive move, given that Facebook has plenty of money to spare and isn’t in any desperate need for more users.
Dan Frommer at SplatF calls the deal, “brilliant” because Instagram is rapidly growing, it has a noteworthy team behind it, and Facebook just took down its no. 1 threat.”
“The biggest threat to Facebook is a mobile-only or mobile-first social network that captures the increasing amount of time spent on smartphones in a way Facebook can’t or doesn’t,” he says.
I’m not sure I’d agree that it’s Facebook’s number one threat, but it is a valid point, regardless. It could have been a threat, regardless. In the same way Google’s biggest threat is people depending on its search engine less in favor of a more diverse selection of services and apps, Facebook faces a similar threat in how people engage with one another. Photos, Instagram’s forte, are certainly a major element of Facebook engagement.
The LA Times compares the deal to Google’s acquisition of YouTube. That deal actually brought a great deal of criticism Google’s way, but I think it’s getting to the point where it is making a great deal more sense to a lot of the doubters.
Mashable’s Chris Taylor talks about how Instagram as a product will benefit from Facebook’s large talent pool. “If Instagram had had an assist from thousands of eager Facebook engineers, do you really think the Android version would have taken that long?” Taylor writes. “Not to mention the iPad version of Instagram, which still hasn’t arrived. Granted, Facebook doesn’t have the best track record in timely iPad apps either, but I’m betting they’ve learned some lessons there.”
Matt Rosoff at Business Insider reports that the deal happened so quickly that no other companies (like Google) had a chance to bid on the acquisition. Likewise, Nicholas Carlson suggests Twitter blew it, given that co-founder Jack Dorsey “believed enough in Instagram to invest his own money in it.”
The Twitter angle is interesting in itself, given the die hard iOS crowd, which makes up a significant portion of Instagram users, and the increased integration of Twitter into the most recent version of iOS itself.
We have to wonder if Google would have pursued it. Perhaps as a defensive move of its own. The company is certainly not shy about acquisitions, though they have slowed a bit this year. Google may, however, be confident in Google+ itself in the photos department. There’s no question that photography has been one key area where Google+ seems to have flourished. There are a whole lot of photographers using Google+ on a daily basis. I know this because I follow many of them. Let’s not forget that it’s directly integrated with Picasa Web albums, as well. In addition to that, Google is implementing the popular Picnik into Google+ as it is shuttering it as a standalone service.
Any successful cause, country, or company has a strong leader behind it. Leaders can inspire people and motivate them to rise like a phoenix.
The 20th century saw great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, and many others. In the business world we have had notable leaders like Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Jack Welch, and Steve Jobs, to name but a few.
All jobs have a leadership component built into it in some shape or form. Search engine optimization (SEO) is no different. In fact, search engine marketing (SEM) and SEO is an innovative field which requires solid leadership.
SEOs, especially in-house SEOs, face many battles daily. Good SEO leadership skills can help you and your SEO program succeed.
We can draw parallels between the qualities of leadership and how SEOs can use those qualities in every day role, be it at an agency or in-house. So here are 10 top characteristics of leaders and how they can be used by pro SEO’s.
1. Lead by Example
An essential leadership trait is leading by example. Be the example in both deeds and action so you can inspire followers to do the same. SEO can be one of those skills where you can put into practice what you preach.
If you’re an in-house SEO, you can zero down on a particular business or department that feels neglected or is small compared to rest of the business. Working with this team could be easier as they would welcome any help that they can get with their SEO. Generating results for this group is a great example of “small wins” and can prove you, the SEO, to be the one leading by example.
2. Integrity
In business and day-to-day life, it’s important to lead a life of integrity, and to be known for it. Al Pacino’s character Frank Slade in “Scent of a Woman” said it best: “He won’t sell any one out to buy his future and that my friend is called Integrity. That’s the stuff leaders should be made of.”
A classic example of integrity in SEO might look like simply refraining from renting or buying links to produce short term SEO results. In the long term it might even backfire and harm your SEO success as well as personal reputation.
We have to look no further than the JCPenney-New York Times expose. To save yourself and your company from this type of situation, it’s important for SEOs to have that ethical approach to link building, and integrity plays a huge part here.
3. Collaborating
Many great leaders could attest that creating a culture of collaboration is essential for the success of any cause. That could be the nation, company, or even a small project at an agency.
Collaboration plays a huge part in bringing everyone together and letting the best minds work together to find a solution to a problem. Over the past decade, collaborative management style has grown in importance. SEO’s are at the forefront of this collaborative style of management as in order for any SEO program to succeed you would need not just input but meaningful contribution from many teams.
Whether it’s developers, IT, your project managers, or designers, SEOs need to bring everyone together to your common cause and collaborate with each stakeholder. After all, a strong SEO program whether be it in-house or at an agency is hard to succeed without everyone moving in the same direction.
4. Celebrating Wins
In his book “Winning”, Jack Welch said “Great Leaders know that successes need to be celebrated.” Celebrating your wins can act not just as a motivational tool but also bonds teams together. Camaraderie between teams allows leaders to pose bigger challenges to them and motivates everyone to work toward their common goal.
SEOs should celebrate every win with their extended teams whether be it with IT for pushing their project up the queue or QA for ensuring they didn’t reject any changes, or with designers who let go of their usual graphic heavy style in favor of a more textually based design. These wins can be in form of anything like a lunch, after work beers, or even a more formal appreciation email.
You can choose any mode of celebration you prefer, but remember to celebrate your SEO wins. After all, no win is small enough to not celebrate.
5. The Big Picture
Leaders are known as visionaries for a reason. When everyone else is mired into the nitty-gritty details it is the leaders who see through that and comprehend the big picture. The iconic Steve Jobs proved that time and again by revolutionizing so many industries.
SEO’s also have it in them to look at the bigger picture by envisioning how their SEO program could look in a year or two years time. Sometimes it could be picking a number from thin air like increasing x number of new site visits through long tail terms or generating y number of revenues through SEO.
It isn’t uncommon for an SEO company to start their gig and get pulled in many different directions. Working through the daily grind while keeping an eye on the big picture tend to work the best for long-term SEO program success.
6. Consensus Building
Great leaders build consensus among their followers before making any decision. The more you practice this trait of consensus building, the better you get at it.
An SEO needs to practice consensus building almost daily – otherwise your SEO efforts won’t come to fruition.
A classic example could be inserting SEO in a development process. If you don’t build consensus among all stakeholders on how critical it is to insert SEO at the planning phase, then chances are SEO would be an afterthought. And we know how expensive that can be, and what a missed opportunity.
Any page level or server level changes in SEO also need to have the blessing of different teams. As SEOs, you need to be the consensus builder.
7. Empowering
Many “leaders” talk about empowerment, but it usually ends up as nothing more than a bold statement. Empowering means giving folks the tools and letting them run with it and make the decisions. That of course has an effect on results as empowering team members brings ownership and accountability (or so you would hope!).
The best way to empower others is to train other people within relevant parts of the company in how to use SEO tools relevant to the area where their job intersects with yours. There are many avenues for SEO training, ranging from formal in-house training to brown bags to a more informal SEO chat during lunch hours.
Another way to empower your wider team, especially IT, is through sharing your SEO tools like webmaster console, analytics reports, your linking tools anything that you use. One of the tools that I let my IT use was Xenu Link Sleuth. Instead of simply showing them screengrabs of your SEO tools why not share the tools with other teams and you should see a marked difference in excitement and engagement on their part.
8. Making Swift Decisions
While others waste time pondering an issue, great leaders are known to collect all data and then make a swift decision. That decision can be as big as bailing out an entire car manufacturing industry or rather small as killing a certain project in your company.
A leader has to make hard decisions. SEO also needs to be able to make swift decisions, whether it’s in the form of a budget or a list of SEO changes you requested. Not all your SEO requests will be acted on so those are the times that you would need to make a swift decision about which project is a high impact activity and which request you can do without.
9. Resolving Conflicts
The bigger the leader or the bigger your team the more conflicts you will encounter. A leader needs to walk a balance between resolving conflicts without making any team feel unwanted or feel biased.
Reams and reams of paper have been dedicated on the subject of managing and resolving conflicts as an essential part of leadership. For SEOs this can mean when marketing is in conflict with IT or designers are in conflict with you the SEO then finding the best solution possible to resolve conflict.
A common conflict is with designers and IT, where they want certain things their way in terms of graphics and SEOs the other. In those cases, developing conflict resolution skills can be very helpful.
10. Creating Culture of Transparency
Leaders strive to create transparency in their organizations as it engages the whole SEO company. Transparency also creates trust in their leaders.
An SEO has a big part to play in creating transparency into the exact processes and changes you will need to follow in order to drive SEO growth. SEO often has a voodoo magic reputation and SEO’s characterized as “snake oil salesman”, so it is imperative that SEO be transparent with their processes and methods.
A great way to achieve transparency is by publishing to your team or stakeholders you’re working with all the changes you will be working on during the course of the project. This onus of creating SEO transparency falls on SEO and in the process you should be able to convert the skeptics into believers.
Summary
SEO can be a lonely battle at times so you should enlist as much support as you can from your wider team. The above leadership traits are perfect for SEOs to adapt for their day-to-day roles. If you have any additions to the list why not leave a comment below!
For instance, you may not have the time or writing skills to fully invest in a managing a content marketing campaign. Since content marketing is one of the fundamental elements of inbound marketing , outsourcing it to a reputable SEO company makes sense. But when looking to outsource your content marketing, or any other part of your SEO, keep it in Canada.
The great thing about working with an SEO firm is that they don’t have to be local. The Internet is everywhere, and nothing in SEO is so time sensitive that working with an SEO company in a different time zone could become a serious issue.
That being said, you want to keep your content writing within Canada.
First off, it takes a mastery of the English language to write exceptional content in English. No to say that there aren’t fluent English speakers all over the world, but if you outsource your content, chances are it won’t be written by them. Most businesses decide to outsource their content to countries like India or the Philippines because it’s much cheaper than hiring a US-based, native English speaking writer.
When it comes to SEO, remember that you get what you pay for! It may only cost you $5 to have someone in India write an article for you, but you’re only going to get an article that is worth $5. One of the ways overseas SEO firms keep their costs down is by spinning content. You hire them to write a few articles about your industry, and they’ll just take a free article from an article submission site, tweak it and sell it back to you as “original” content. Most of the time they won’t even bother to steal the good content; authors who care about their work keep an eye on who is “borrowing” it. They’ll pluck articles from spammy, low-quality sites that algorithm updates like Panda were designed to take down.
Some businesses decide to outsource their content marketing overseas because they don’t have the time to produce the content in-house. If that’s the case, don’t you want to outsource your content marketing to a white hat SEO company that knows, not only how to write great content, but also leverage it for SEO. If you are writing content just to drop a few links, you’re missing out on the bigger picture.
Content marketing is supposed to enhance your brand and build your credibility as an industry authority. Outsourcing your content overseas may be the cheaper option, but what is it really doing to help grow you brand and build your online presence? You have to think in long-term when planning your SEO. Pinching pennies now could mean paying a higher price farther down the road. Don’t be penny wise, pound foolish with your SEO! Nick Stamoulis.
Seo Company – Much of the search marketing industry is up in arms over notifications from Google Webmaster Tools warning users that they’ve fallen from Google’s graces and should be on the lookout for “artificial or unnatural links… that could be used to manipulate PageRank”.
What began as a ripple back in February has become a tidal wave of discontent and alarm as more report receiving the notices.
The hardest hit so far, if you can judge by the buzz on the web, are blog networks like BuildMyRank (which is actually shutting down). It’s unclear whether it’s an algorithmic update or manual penalty, but it’s likely not a coincidence that Google recently discussed the deindexing of web hosting services earlier this month. Where Panda set out to rid the web of mass-produced, low quality content, this latest action from Google seems designed to sniff out unnatural backlink profiles and those responsible.
The “unnatural” distinction is an important one, as until now, SEOs and webmasters have largely been discouraged from creating paid links. Especially since the JCPenney debacle, we all know, inside the search industry and out, that buying links is bad, bad news.
In a 2008 interview with Eric Enge, Google Web Spam Czar Matt Cutts talked about link building – specifically, how to do it ethically and within Google’s guidelines. In fact, over the years, Cutts has shared link building tips often; see the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel for examples. Some of the strategies he recommends are original research, creating controversy, and using humor. Still, it’s all about the content.
Recent events seem almost a fundamental shift in the way Google perceives inbound links; they’re now saying not only can you not buy them, you can’t try to build at all. Of course, Google is predictably tight-lipped about what it is, exactly, that has relegated the offending sites to the wrist-slap list. That means that, as usual, we can only take best guesses.
The theory I think holds the most water is Frank Watson’s, who contributed to this article. It does seem that this round of penalizations and deindexing incidents is the result of Google’s sniffing out large quantities of unnatural anchor text alone.
For example, an unnatural link profile for a flower shop might look like: 1,000 links with the brand name as the anchor text; 3,500 links using “buy flowers online”; 5,000 links using “order flowers online,” etc. You would expect more links to use the brand name as anchor text; large quantities of links using very specific, high search volume terms, even more than the name of the business, could be a red flag. This is the kind of profile that might signal a stinker to Google.
Any objections I’ve seen over how easy a straight anchor text flag is for competitors to abuse have been pooh-poohed, as in, “People should just focus on their own sites,” or “No one is going to waste their time doing that.” Oh yes, yes they will. It happens often.
It doesn’t seem as though those who have received the notices have suffered greatly… yet. In their closing announcement, BuildMyRank gave clients the option of deleting all of their links. By all accounts, they seem to have handled the situation as best they could. And for their clients, getting rid of those links is probably the most logical option.
Yet, others are panicking and freaking out in a rush to dump links they got from blog networks. Little birdies are whispering that Google has offered to go light on those who give up the name of the SEO company who developed their nasty links. Whether or not that’s true, it might be a bad idea to either get rid of a chunk of your link profile before you have to, or throw a company under the bus without firsthand knowledge of whether they were the problem.
Google does have a way of inciting panic, and it’s no wonder… so many rely on them for organic traffic to drive a large portion of their revenue (and therein lies your first mistake). If the knee-jerk reaction to Google’s sending out warning notifications is that everyone and their brother runs out to file reports and beg for mercy, or to go so far as trying to delete backlinks, hasn’t Google saved themselves a lot of work!
Unnatural links, paid links… obviously they’re not going to pay off in the grand scheme of things. But before you jump on the bandwagon, ask yourself if you can handle the immediate drop in rankings and possibly traffic if you delete a bunch of backlinks. Or should you stop, breathe, plan, and try something new to build up some volume of backlinks before pulling plug on any that might be deemed “unnatural?” SEO company
Creating articles for a website is one of the trends when it comes to online marketing today, but it is not as simple as writing an article and posting it on the web. There are still many considerations that must be anticipated in order to have your article or website be noticed, placed on top of the lists when someone searched for it and be read by millions of readers worldwide. Bloggers or web companies aim for this in order to yield better return of investment in the form of advertising; so the more their articles as well as advertisements are introduced into the market, the better earnings they will accumulate.
For that matter, search engine optimized content or SEO is very crucial when it comes to increasing the visibility of an article or website in a search engine. Of course, you will want to put your website on top of the list. In that case, you have to know some of the best SEO marketing strategies to help you attain this goal. The first thing you may want to do is distinguish which article topics will gain more interest for the visitors. There are some websites that offer trending topics for the market to help you choose and decide more appropriately. Some suggests using larger niches like weight loss or parenting especially for new users. These types of contents are more commonly searched online and thus will have a higher chance of becoming more visible. Otherwise, you can search for other informative SEO topics that appeal to larger audiences through magazines, or you may research for products that are most in demand to consumer today so you know what sort of SEO content you should target. In short, you have to find out which problems or issues would capture wide variety of audiences for your SEO articles.
Nevertheless, marketing articles does not only include finding the best SEO topics for your website, there are other necessary techniques that should be done in order to put an emphasis to the content placed in the internet. One of the most effective SEO techniques you can apply is keyword stuffing. This involves putting several distinctive keywords within the article. These keywords should include words or phrase that the internet users are more likely to type in the search engine toolbar when searching for specific information. Additionally, you have to update your SEO content from time to time in order to maintain your ranking online. This can be done by creating variety of informative SEO articles about your chosen topic. Most search engines such as Google are able to evaluate new SEO contents in a website and put them or prioritize them more than the older entries. Sustaining and continuously updating your SEO contents is important because thousands of websites are added everyday on the internet.
Because of great competition among websites today, effective marketing SEO will allow your site to rank competitively among others. Therefore, finding the best SEO topics in order to create a content that will attract more attention to internet users in addition to other SEO strategies can help you sustain your website online.
Fix: End the post with a key takeaway followed by an actionable statement. In other words, now that they’ve read the content, what should they do? From an SMO standpoint, leverage the opportunity to entice the user to take a social action – rate, share, bookmark, comment, follow, subscribe, etc. (Only promote one or two actions. The more options suggested, the less likelihood you’ll have for conversion.) The action you recommend should be visible and proximate to the bottom of the article.
