Social Signals is not the Top Ranking Factor yet ♦ but it soon will be ♦ the sooner you have your Authorship rel=author in place ♦ the sooner your Author Rank will impact the search results in your favor.
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Social SEO Consulting Services
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Skype JNFerree
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On-page SEO, Keyword Research, Link Building, Social Media, Tools
Excellent intro to SEO but I'm not so sure the skill level is beginner to intermediate? The SMB I know and work with, some of these concepts and tactics would be considered advanced optimization techniques.
The deeper the emotional tie to the user the more likely the content can go viral. Humor and Funny is appealing to the masses whereas, fight or flight is less massive appeal but can be effective at times.
I would echo lessons learned from these 2 articles from socialmediatoday and B2C that imply the future of SEO will be impacted by;Social Shares Trump Keywords in Google Search RankingsSocial Signals, Quality Content, and Search Marketing will Merge in 2013 The Currency of the New Economy is Trust :: Ted Talk Rachel Botsman Which to me suggests ones Author Rank will become as important as PR + Alexa + Comscore combined
According to the Search Metrics study social shares trumps keywords in Google search rankings and while your 7 questions and desired responses are thorough and make a lot of sense to me, I would be interested to hear what a Sr. SEO Specialist candidate's view on "The Future of SEO" and how h/she would go about developing a social content marketing strategy vs. conventional SEO tactics. To me, this would give the SEO candidate a chance to articulate his acquired SEO expertise in a way that would reveal his tactical, technical and strategic thinking.
I'm not sure if you coined the phrase: Branded Traffic but I like it! Especially given the inroads and impact Google Authorship is having on helping the rel=author SMB guy who wants to go toe-to-toe with the Big Boys. The piece JD Rucker posted up on socialmediatoday entitled: Social Signals, Quality Content, And Search Marketing will Merge in 2013 combined with a few of the dynamics you purport here John will make a lot sense to the SMB guys I've been working with and advocating they consider taking a more pro-active approach with establishing their Though Leadership in their perspective niche markets.
There's a good reason your post got elevated from YouMoz to SEOmoz • Quality Content is still Key! This article somewhat validates the article I authored back on Feb 12, 2012 entitled Social Shares is Becoming the New SEO albeit, you've support references are newer and better support metrics then what I purported back in February `12.
Now that G+ is in full bloom and rel=author is becoming more common place, my quandary is to figure out how much more influential (of even if) a social share is superior to a social signal or if a +1 or FB Like will carry the same weight as a Plus post that attracts multiple "shares" + comments + creates a robust Ripple based on the metrics you mention in this well written piece?
Most of the good SEO's have already made the leap with rel=author and social sharing via Digg Digg to help the client site avail and acquire more social signals. What's not so prominent is the move to the mobile friendly "RWD" platform {me included} knowing that htaccess is no longer going to cut it. I'm still on the hunt for a Studio Press eleven40 expert to assist on this {in case h/she} is listening?
Nice job Mike. Even like your mini jabs @AJ (one of my fave SEO mavens) and while I'm also not a rabid fan of guest blogging, I guess I have to bow to the AR benefits and get w/ the program. I pinned you green diagram for obvious reasons.
It should be glaringly obvious to one and all that Marcela is spot on with the business value inherent with guest blogging. After all, not every tom, dick and harry will get their 500+ word article accepted by SEOMoz. I'm sure this piece took a bit of time to create, but I betcha the # of clicks in her resource box justifies the time and effect expended to publish this puppy • eh Marcela?
You're right David, #10 is key in any competitive selling situation these days. #9 is my pet peeve. Unless my 3 minute recon on a potential partner, vendor and sometimes even client has put in the effort to bring their online presence up to snuff, I am less apt to invest time w/ the relationship.
I even find myself using #9 metrics on whether I "circle" someone on G+ or not. I may have become a bit of a IM snob but with so much noise out there, I'd rather have fewer A+ signals than 1,000 D- signals - if that makes any sense ;-)
Well done Stephanie. I've got a few clients in semi-boring niches that will find this article and approach to be useful. You explained the concept w/ a nice "how to approach" a lot better than most. Strong work!
I would agree with most of your observations and counter positions as it relates to link building. But the point you made in your summary paragraph makes the most sense to me and is actionable for those who understand that
Gaming Google’s algorithm is getting harder day-by-day. Google has already stated their intentions to improve the evaluation of content through authorship signals better assessment of the social graph and improved understanding of the semantic qualities of content on the web?
Truer words were never spoken. Besides the "cliche" you get what you pay for, in a post-Panda world, and given the incredible competitive nature of nearly every niche of any consequence, one must (or should) at a minimum, invest the time and effort to produce quality content and forgoe the fantasy of outsourcing the work.
I'm not sure its a clear black & white issue when it comes to on-page opti vs. conventional SEO now that we've seen the impact Social Shares is having on SEO.
The recent news about Google whacking link networks that offer little content value and user experience is a pretty clear sign that old school link building strategy is going the way of the buggy whip. Still, having a solid web 2.0 link wheel that you control what content goes live and how well the content gets optimized (to me anyway) is still a valid and worthwhile component to a "clean" SEO strategy.
Strong work Eppie! Your post is making the rounds on Google+ by some pretty savvy SEO guys I track - so its good to see you're getting your just desserts for authoring such a strong analytics piece showcasing Link Detective. Nicely done - Neil
Excellent post but pretty depressing at the same time. I knew this task was significant but this article only heightens my stress that I'm going to have to endure to migrate site 1 to site 2.
Interesting and very thorough summation of how local-ish impacts certain SERP's. I wonder how much impact adding the KML file to your site has on these results? I'm not sure what prompted me to do a search for my GP phone number, but when I do, I get very peculiar results and they are different if I include dashes or not?
The peculiar SERP is that my GP Listing renders where normally Google Maps would show up. This is why I ask if adding the KML file has any impact? Now I realize most people don't search for a company by phone number, of if they do, its a small % of searches, I'm just perplexed by this result.
Over all Jennita, your info is useful to novice and experienced website owners and bloggers alike. The one thing I would add to this piece is that on-page optimization requires a little more than meta title | keyword and link building is not going away any time soon. That said, building a robust web 2.0 link wheel, comprised of sites where you've verified your audience congregates, collaborates and shares info, events, snippets etc. is well worth the effort.
I posted up a PPT Preso on SlideShare this week entitled: How to Build a Web 2.0 Link Wheel that got north of 3,200 views, downloaded 100+ times embedded 99 times and all this action happend in less than 1 week, so I suspect more and more people are paying attention to the convergence of social media and conventional seo.
Didn't I read last week that P&G was planning to lay off some 1,600 people in their Marketing Dept. after the CEO got wind that they could advertise on G+ and FB for free so some variation therein? Now that G+SYW and the personal results are the default SERP's and knowing that social shares are evolving as a key SEO | SEM element, it seems to me that BOTH camps must be as you say "in sync" for the over all strategy to be effective.
Another excellent WBF session Rand. As Social impacts more and more the SEO landscape, I would imagine the guys at Rockmelt might see a major spike in the # of users of their Social Media friendly Chrome based browser. I was a little amazed that a brief 10 page slideshow I posted up to SlideShare got 500+ views in less than an hour touching on the impact social is having on seo and why its becoming more useful to design, build and deploy a strong web 2.0 link wheel.
I compare Alexa v. Google Analytics v. AWstats to graph what my stats look like for:
# of "unique" visits
time spent on site
bounce rate
search terms used to find my site
referral sites
and usually ALL of these sources come up with wildy different stats. So I'm glad (kinda) to hear I'm not the only one vexed with how site analytics numbers vary from tool to tool.
Prediction #8 :: it will be more difficult to provide top tier SEO services wwithout using G+ :: for the most part, I would agree (however) notice the # of +1 clicks vs. Tweets and FB Likes on this article? The +1 Button is low man on the totem pole :: why is that?
I'm keeping a close eye on how Social is becoming the New SEO and if the new social share WordPress plugin I just installed on my Local SEO Blog will influence a spike in the # of social shares on my varous sites?
Timely and useful post Corey! Twitter pushed the envelope in 2011 and I expect, given the recent momentum of G+ and the new FB redesign, their engineers will be forced to keep an active tech road map to keep pace with the Big Boys. One of these days, some wiz kid code jockey will hopefully come up with a WP plugin that will let us add a Twitter page with our Tier 1 Circles (I mean Followers) and message this data on our dashboard on the fly.
I've been reading where Social is becoming the New SEO (although) I'm not 100% sure about this, but I do agree having a solid Social Media Marketing game plan will come in handy for 2012.
I suspect the # of +1 button clicks will impact in a big way, the freshness factor of a piece of content. Whether its a 400 word article, a 3 minute video or a well crafted PR submission. How many people find, read, like (+1) your content will tell the bots your content is fresh, relevant and should be ranked high in the serp's
Kudos Mike! Every now and again, I get lucky and find an SEO guy who authors an excellent article like this that I can share with my client's to .edu them of the many underlying mechanics that need to be understood if they want their content and site to get the props they think it deserves. BTW, your moniker iPullRank is pretty cool!
Isn't it obvious that an optimized VIDEO (that auto generates a thumbnail) is well worth the effort. It took < 25 links and < 30 minutes to get our video ranked on page 1 goog oranic for water heater repair aurora and while the view count is small compared to other plumber longtails, the asset it positve ROI.
Justin, one of the reasons I sub to SEOmoz was to gleen such content, albeit this content, is above my pay grade. I'll have to revisit and reread to grasp some of the heddy concecpts, but in general, a well laid out piece. - Neil
Excellent post. So good in fact, its worthy of being used as a front end guide to new clients to peruse in advance of detailing our phase 1 design schedule. But like Tyssen, said; different browsers render different designs which makes testing your work on the 4x majors (IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari) a mus do PITA effort.
This is one reason why I keep a close on my Klout metrics and added Rapportive to my Gmail account. Hopefully, the guys at Rockmelt will figure out a way to take this new social SEO dynamic and work it into their business model, which could/should make things easier for some of us wanting to provide SMM services to those who don't know or don't have the where with all to ID and engage their growing social circle.
Time on site, bounce rate, # of pages viewed are a few of the metrics Alexa tracks and I monitor. 7 minutes on my site, 3.2 pages are OK but my bounce rate is horrid or maybe my WP site structure needs tending to.
Not only because you clearly demonstrate you are a bona-fide SME on SEO (but) most importantly (selfishly) you gave me more than enough ammo to squelch any rebuttal on why I won't use those bottom feeder outsourcing sources to augment my SEO services I charge my clients.
It took me a couple of years to get my arms around what I consider "best practices" SEO techniques. I can brag all day long about how I am on Page 1 of Google for this search term and that longtail yadda/yadda and yet, there's this other site that bests my ranking but when you peak behind the curtain, you clearly see the Wizard is Phat and Nakit.
My partner and I build World Class WordPress Websites (we even own the domain) and we provide kick butt (manual) SEO, albeit, we do need to figure out how to scale so we can do 50 sites a day v. 50 sites a week. Still, I intend to use this post as proof statements when a client says $2500 a month for SEO ain't worth it. Its not only that you get what you pay for, its QUALITY counts in the SEO space and this post goes a long way to support my argument. Strong Work!
This is "new found" information and pretty darn useful to boot. Nice to know learn about this hastag technique. I've been using a manual method to handle my on page optimization for seo value when the bots crawl my site and this added link view is an eye opener. strong work!
I actually like the idea of learning the manual workings as noted herein. I use a number of WP plug-ins to help me enahnce my SEO efforts, but in many ways, its still manual but very effective. As a matter of fact, one of my recent posts on On-Page Optimization SEO shows my readers what tools I use to optimize my content and then push this content to my social media sites for link wheel building.
Good answer and reply! Why people spend their time doing this kind of stealth reverse seo action amazes me. Its kinda analogous to click fraud. Competitor X hires a Turk to click Competitor Y goog ads and use up his daily budget and bam he's out of the game. BTW, this was one of the better exlpanaitions of how Panda / Farmer algos are rolling out. Strong work!
Blog Post: How to Rank: 25 Step SEO Master Blueprint
Excellent intro to SEO but I'm not so sure the skill level is beginner to intermediate? The SMB I know and work with, some of these concepts and tactics would be considered advanced optimization techniques.
Blog Post: The Secret Recipe for Viral Content Marketing Success
The deeper the emotional tie to the user the more likely the content can go viral. Humor and Funny is appealing to the masses whereas, fight or flight is less massive appeal but can be effective at times.
Blog Post: 10 Predictions for Inbound Marketing in 2013
I would echo lessons learned from these 2 articles from socialmediatoday and B2C that imply the future of SEO will be impacted by;Social Shares Trump Keywords in Google Search RankingsSocial Signals, Quality Content, and Search Marketing will Merge in 2013 The Currency of the New Economy is Trust :: Ted Talk Rachel Botsman
Which to me suggests ones Author Rank will become as important as PR + Alexa + Comscore combined
Blog Post: How to Build and Operate a Content Marketing Machine
The 55 page eBook makes this post even more useful and a much faster read. Strong work Toby
Blog Post: 7 Job Interview Questions to ask a Senior SEO Specialist
According to the Search Metrics study social shares trumps keywords in Google search rankings and while your 7 questions and desired responses are thorough and make a lot of sense to me, I would be interested to hear what a Sr. SEO Specialist candidate's view on "The Future of SEO" and how h/she would go about developing a social content marketing strategy vs. conventional SEO tactics.
To me, this would give the SEO candidate a chance to articulate his acquired SEO expertise in a way that would reveal his tactical, technical and strategic thinking.
Blog Post: How To Brand and Grow Your Company Through Marketing
I'm not sure if you coined the phrase: Branded Traffic but I like it! Especially given the inroads and impact Google Authorship is having on helping the rel=author SMB guy who wants to go toe-to-toe with the Big Boys.
The piece JD Rucker posted up on socialmediatoday entitled: Social Signals, Quality Content, And Search Marketing will Merge in 2013 combined with a few of the dynamics you purport here John will make a lot sense to the SMB guys I've been working with and advocating they consider taking a more pro-active approach with establishing their Though Leadership in their perspective niche markets.
Blog Post: Your Guide to Social Signals for SEO
There's a good reason your post got elevated from YouMoz to SEOmoz • Quality Content is still Key! This article somewhat validates the article I authored back on Feb 12, 2012 entitled Social Shares is Becoming the New SEO albeit, you've support references are newer and better support metrics then what I purported back in February `12.
Now that G+ is in full bloom and rel=author is becoming more common place, my quandary is to figure out how much more influential (of even if) a social share is superior to a social signal or if a +1 or FB Like will carry the same weight as a Plus post that attracts multiple "shares" + comments + creates a robust Ripple based on the metrics you mention in this well written piece?
Blog Post: Getting On-Page SEO Right in 2012 and Beyond - Whiteboard Friday
Most of the good SEO's have already made the leap with rel=author and social sharing via Digg Digg to help the client site avail and acquire more social signals. What's not so prominent is the move to the mobile friendly "RWD" platform {me included} knowing that htaccess is no longer going to cut it. I'm still on the hunt for a Studio Press eleven40 expert to assist on this {in case h/she} is listening?
Blog Post: How to Prepare for Author Rank and Get the Jump on Google
Nice job Mike. Even like your mini jabs @AJ (one of my fave SEO mavens) and while I'm also not a rabid fan of guest blogging, I guess I have to bow to the AR benefits and get w/ the program. I pinned you green diagram for obvious reasons.
Blog Post: Guest Post your Way Out of Antarctica
It should be glaringly obvious to one and all that Marcela is spot on with the business value inherent with guest blogging. After all, not every tom, dick and harry will get their 500+ word article accepted by SEOMoz. I'm sure this piece took a bit of time to create, but I betcha the # of clicks in her resource box justifies the time and effect expended to publish this puppy • eh Marcela?
Blog Post: 10 Reasons Why You'll Blow That Big Deal
You're right David, #10 is key in any competitive selling situation these days. #9 is my pet peeve. Unless my 3 minute recon on a potential partner, vendor and sometimes even client has put in the effort to bring their online presence up to snuff, I am less apt to invest time w/ the relationship.
I even find myself using #9 metrics on whether I "circle" someone on G+ or not. I may have become a bit of a IM snob but with so much noise out there, I'd rather have fewer A+ signals than 1,000 D- signals - if that makes any sense ;-)
Blog Post: The Guide to Developing a Content Strategy for "Boring" Industries
Blog Post: Comment Marketing as an Inbound Tactic - Whiteboard Friday
I like it when a site uses Disqus and/or LiveFrye as commenting system. CommonLuv is also a nice alrternative.
Blog Post: Link Anatomy - Understanding The Value Of A Link
One year later • are these bullet points still valid, credible, realistic (accurate)?
Blog Post: Why Link Schemes Fail
I would agree with most of your observations and counter positions as it relates to link building. But the point you made in your summary paragraph makes the most sense to me and is actionable for those who understand that
Gaming Google’s algorithm is getting harder day-by-day. Google has already stated their intentions to improve the evaluation of content through authorship signals better assessment of the social graph and improved understanding of the semantic qualities of content on the web?
Blog Post: An Open Letter From a Frustrated Outsourced Link Building Author
Truer words were never spoken. Besides the "cliche" you get what you pay for, in a post-Panda world, and given the incredible competitive nature of nearly every niche of any consequence, one must (or should) at a minimum, invest the time and effort to produce quality content and forgoe the fantasy of outsourcing the work.
Blog Post: What's Better - On-page SEO or Link-building?
I'm not sure its a clear black & white issue when it comes to on-page opti vs. conventional SEO now that we've seen the impact Social Shares is having on SEO.
The recent news about Google whacking link networks that offer little content value and user experience is a pretty clear sign that old school link building strategy is going the way of the buggy whip. Still, having a solid web 2.0 link wheel that you control what content goes live and how well the content gets optimized (to me anyway) is still a valid and worthwhile component to a "clean" SEO strategy.
Blog Post: How Garbage Ranks in the SERPs: a Case Study
Strong work Eppie! Your post is making the rounds on Google+ by some pretty savvy SEO guys I track - so its good to see you're getting your just desserts for authoring such a strong analytics piece showcasing Link Detective. Nicely done - Neil
Blog Post: Web Site Migration Guide - Tips For SEOs
Excellent post but pretty depressing at the same time. I knew this task was significant but this article only heightens my stress that I'm going to have to endure to migrate site 1 to site 2.
Blog Post: The New SEO Process (Quit Being Kanye)
Excellent work product. Definitely worth a Pin on Pinterst. A Share on G+ and a "internal" READ THIS NOW note to my partners and 5x VA's
Blog Post: Monitor Which Social Networks Your Visitors are Logged Into With Google Analytics
I agree 1000% and would gladly pay the freight to acquire said WP plugin once its made avail
Blog Post: Location: A Ranking Factor in Organic SERPs
Interesting and very thorough summation of how local-ish impacts certain SERP's. I wonder how much impact adding the KML file to your site has on these results? I'm not sure what prompted me to do a search for my GP phone number, but when I do, I get very peculiar results and they are different if I include dashes or not?
The peculiar SERP is that my GP Listing renders where normally Google Maps would show up. This is why I ask if adding the KML file has any impact? Now I realize most people don't search for a company by phone number, of if they do, its a small % of searches, I'm just perplexed by this result.
Blog Post: The Social Media Marketer's SEO Checklist
Over all Jennita, your info is useful to novice and experienced website owners and bloggers alike. The one thing I would add to this piece is that on-page optimization requires a little more than meta title | keyword and link building is not going away any time soon. That said, building a robust web 2.0 link wheel, comprised of sites where you've verified your audience congregates, collaborates and shares info, events, snippets etc. is well worth the effort.
I posted up a PPT Preso on SlideShare this week entitled: How to Build a Web 2.0 Link Wheel that got north of 3,200 views, downloaded 100+ times embedded 99 times and all this action happend in less than 1 week, so I suspect more and more people are paying attention to the convergence of social media and conventional seo.
Blog Post: 10 Ways Paid Marketers Can Leverage Inbound Marketing
Didn't I read last week that P&G was planning to lay off some 1,600 people in their Marketing Dept. after the CEO got wind that they could advertise on G+ and FB for free so some variation therein? Now that G+SYW and the personal results are the default SERP's and knowing that social shares are evolving as a key SEO | SEM element, it seems to me that BOTH camps must be as you say "in sync" for the over all strategy to be effective.
Blog Post: How to Increase the Odds of Your Content Going Viral - Whiteboard Friday
Another excellent WBF session Rand. As Social impacts more and more the SEO landscape, I would imagine the guys at Rockmelt might see a major spike in the # of users of their Social Media friendly Chrome based browser. I was a little amazed that a brief 10 page slideshow I posted up to SlideShare got 500+ views in less than an hour touching on the impact social is having on seo and why its becoming more useful to design, build and deploy a strong web 2.0 link wheel.
Blog Post: Testing the Accuracy of Visitor Data from Alexa, Compete, Google Trends, Doubleclick & Quantcast
I compare Alexa v. Google Analytics v. AWstats to graph what my stats look like for:
and usually ALL of these sources come up with wildy different stats. So I'm glad (kinda) to hear I'm not the only one vexed with how site analytics numbers vary from tool to tool.
Blog Post: 8 Predictions for SEO in 2012
Prediction #8 :: it will be more difficult to provide top tier SEO services wwithout using G+ :: for the most part, I would agree (however) notice the # of +1 clicks vs. Tweets and FB Likes on this article? The +1 Button is low man on the totem pole :: why is that?
I'm keeping a close eye on how Social is becoming the New SEO and if the new social share WordPress plugin I just installed on my Local SEO Blog will influence a spike in the # of social shares on my varous sites?
Blog Post: How Google+ Uses SEO to Steal Search from Facebook and Twitter
2 metrics I've been tracking on G+ are:
I suspect a Ripple will carry more social and seo value then merely having your post rank at the top of a G+ search, but both are desireable.
Blog Post: Tools, Twitter and a Ton of Opportunity
Timely and useful post Corey! Twitter pushed the envelope in 2011 and I expect, given the recent momentum of G+ and the new FB redesign, their engineers will be forced to keep an active tech road map to keep pace with the Big Boys. One of these days, some wiz kid code jockey will hopefully come up with a WP plugin that will let us add a Twitter page with our Tier 1 Circles (I mean Followers) and message this data on our dashboard on the fly.
I've been reading where Social is becoming the New SEO (although) I'm not 100% sure about this, but I do agree having a solid Social Media Marketing game plan will come in handy for 2012.
Blog Post: Freshness Factor: 10 Illustrations on How Fresh Content Can Influence Rankings
I suspect the # of +1 button clicks will impact in a big way, the freshness factor of a piece of content. Whether its a 400 word article, a 3 minute video or a well crafted PR submission. How many people find, read, like (+1) your content will tell the bots your content is fresh, relevant and should be ranked high in the serp's
Blog Post: Just How Smart Are Search Robots?
Kudos Mike! Every now and again, I get lucky and find an SEO guy who authors an excellent article like this that I can share with my client's to .edu them of the many underlying mechanics that need to be understood if they want their content and site to get the props they think it deserves. BTW, your moniker iPullRank is pretty cool!
Blog Post: Eye-Tracking Google SERPs - 5 Tales of Pizza
Isn't it obvious that an optimized VIDEO (that auto generates a thumbnail) is well worth the effort. It took < 25 links and < 30 minutes to get our video ranked on page 1 goog oranic for water heater repair aurora and while the view count is small compared to other plumber longtails, the asset it positve ROI.
Blog Post: Better Understanding Link-based Spam Analysis Techniques
Justin, one of the reasons I sub to SEOmoz was to gleen such content, albeit this content, is above my pay grade. I'll have to revisit and reread to grasp some of the heddy concecpts, but in general, a well laid out piece. - Neil
Blog Post: Blog Design for Killer SEO - Infographic
Excellent post. So good in fact, its worthy of being used as a front end guide to new clients to peruse in advance of detailing our phase 1 design schedule. But like Tyssen, said; different browsers render different designs which makes testing your work on the 4x majors (IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari) a mus do PITA effort.
Blog Post: Social Annotations in Search: Now Your Social Network = Rankings
This is one reason why I keep a close on my Klout metrics and added Rapportive to my Gmail account. Hopefully, the guys at Rockmelt will figure out a way to take this new social SEO dynamic and work it into their business model, which could/should make things easier for some of us wanting to provide SMM services to those who don't know or don't have the where with all to ID and engage their growing social circle.
Blog Post: How Google's Panda Update Changed SEO Best Practices Forever - Whiteboard Friday
Time on site, bounce rate, # of pages viewed are a few of the metrics Alexa tracks and I monitor. 7 minutes on my site, 3.2 pages are OK but my bounce rate is horrid or maybe my WP site structure needs tending to.
Blog Post: White Hat SEO: It F@$#ing Works
Excellent post!
Not only because you clearly demonstrate you are a bona-fide SME on SEO (but) most importantly (selfishly) you gave me more than enough ammo to squelch any rebuttal on why I won't use those bottom feeder outsourcing sources to augment my SEO services I charge my clients.
It took me a couple of years to get my arms around what I consider "best practices" SEO techniques. I can brag all day long about how I am on Page 1 of Google for this search term and that longtail yadda/yadda and yet, there's this other site that bests my ranking but when you peak behind the curtain, you clearly see the Wizard is Phat and Nakit.
My partner and I build World Class WordPress Websites (we even own the domain) and we provide kick butt (manual) SEO, albeit, we do need to figure out how to scale so we can do 50 sites a day v. 50 sites a week. Still, I intend to use this post as proof statements when a client says $2500 a month for SEO ain't worth it. Its not only that you get what you pay for, its QUALITY counts in the SEO space and this post goes a long way to support my argument. Strong Work!
Blog Post: The True Potential of Anchor Links (#)
This is "new found" information and pretty darn useful to boot. Nice to know learn about this hastag technique. I've been using a manual method to handle my on page optimization for seo value when the bots crawl my site and this added link view is an eye opener. strong work!
Blog Post: How to Build Links Without Fancy Tools
I actually like the idea of learning the manual workings as noted herein. I use a number of WP plug-ins to help me enahnce my SEO efforts, but in many ways, its still manual but very effective. As a matter of fact, one of my recent posts on On-Page Optimization SEO shows my readers what tools I use to optimize my content and then push this content to my social media sites for link wheel building.
Blog Post: Preventing Link-Based Penalties - Whiteboard Friday
Good answer and reply! Why people spend their time doing this kind of stealth reverse seo action amazes me. Its kinda analogous to click fraud. Competitor X hires a Turk to click Competitor Y goog ads and use up his daily budget and bam he's out of the game. BTW, this was one of the better exlpanaitions of how Panda / Farmer algos are rolling out. Strong work!