The Five Worst Copywriting Mistakes on the Web

Turn on the TV around 3 a.m., and you’re sure to see some cheesy infomercial with a sales pitch that makes you cringe.  The cheese-factor isn’t limited to late-night TV, though.  Thanks to a variety of copywriting mistakes, the World Wide Web has turned into a 24/7 cheese-fest.
So, what kinds of mistakes are Web copywriters making these days?  And, more importantly, has your sales copy fallen victim to any of them?

1.  Too much hype

This gets the No. 1 spot on the list because hype has spread through Web copy like some kind of flesh-eating virus. That’s because most of the copywriters out there mistake hype for excitement.  Instead of big, bold, red text and a million exclamation points, your sales copy should get readers excited about the product itself.
Unfortunately, lots of the Web sales copy you see is designed to create a giant diversion away from the product.  Instead of having a reasonable discussion about the product — and creating excitement about what it can actually do — copywriters try to stick a giant elephant in the middle of the page.  In the end, the sales copy is what people remember, instead of the product itself.

2.  Ridiculous promises

Yes, this is a type of hype, but it’s such a big mistake that it deserves its own spot on the list.
Here’s what you need to remember the next time you sit down to write some sales copy (or approve what someone else has written for you) — your target audience is full of intelligent people who are going to see right through ridiculous promises.  If you make these promises with the hopes that people will believe them, you’re treating your audience like it’s stupid.  That’s a great way to make people dislike you.  And if they don’t like you, they’ll never buy from you.
What kinds of ridiculous promises are floating around out there?

• How about the trading program that promises to make you rich after just 10 minutes of work per week?  (Is there really anything that can make you rich in 10 minutes per week short of driving to the nearest gas station and buying a lottery ticket?)
• Then, there’s the SEO Company that promises to give you a Top 5 Google ranking for any keyword, in less than three months.  (If you know anything about how Google operates these days, you know that’s an impossible promise to keep.)
• And then, there’s my personal favorite — the cookies that promise to give you a bigger bust. (Anyone who has even a little bit of common sense knows that this is absolutely ridiculous!)

3.  Not enough emotion

Most people are going to buy your product because of how it makes them feel.  Good sales copy will either show people how much easier life will be once they’ve got your product, or it will show them how scary life will be if they don’t buy your product.
If your Web copy doesn’t create one of these two emotions, the odds of you making any sales are slim.  After all, most people are looking for reasons not to spend money.  If you take emotion out of the equation, they’ll be able to talk themselves right out of making a purchase.
Think of it in terms of trying to give ice cream to someone on a diet.  If you offer them boring vanilla, they’re going to turn it down.  But if you offer them exciting rocky road, they’re going to ignore their diet, just this once.

4.  Giant paragraphs

Web readers are notorious scanners, and they’re especially scan-happy when you plunk some sales copy down in front of them. Give them paragraphs that could dwarf the State of the Union Address, and you’ll see their eyes glaze over — and your profits will go out the window.
Instead, make sure your Web copy is easy to scan.  That means coming up with bullet-point lists and bite-sized paragraphs that won’t look intimidating to someone who’s trying to get the facts in a hurry.

5.  Leaving unanswered questions

Even though you’re not writing a news story, you still need to attack your Web copy like a journalist would — by making sure you give the “who, what, where, when, why, and how” details.  Remember, people are looking for reasons to keep their credit cards in their wallets.  Not knowing all of the facts or feeling fuzzy on the details is the perfect excuse.
Bottom line — the more questions people have when they get to the end of your copy, the lower your chances of making any sales.
resource:http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/03/29/the-five-worst-copywriting-mistakes-on-the-web/

Twitter Launches New Advertising Options for Small Businesses

Internet Marketing
Small businesses and large enterprises are now created equal – at least when it comes to advertising on Twitter.
Twitter announced its new advanced advertising interface for small businesses and other self-service advertisers recently. It doesn’t matter if you’re operating a small online store or are the webmaster of a local car dealership, if you currently use Twitter Ads or have been invited to join, you now have an all access pass to powerful targeting and reporting tools. Prior to the announcement, these advanced options and reports were only available to big brands and big spenders by Internet Marketing.
The advertising platform has been available by invitation only since last March and these recent adjustments have been made based on user experience. As feedback rolled in over the past year, Product Manager Ravi Narasimhan explained in the announcement’s blog post that “two requests kept coming up: marketers wanted access to more robust targeting tools, as well as a pathway to all the bells and whistles of our advanced interface if they desired it.”

This slow but steady roll out of Twitter’s advertising platform and its subsequent updates is part of the network’s effort to monetize the site. So to attract more businesses of all sizes, the Twitter Ads team has launched several new ad features, including audience targeting, advanced campaign controls and expanded reporting and analytics, that smaller businesses and webmasters weren’t previously able to access.

Reach the Right Tweeter by Interest, Device and Gender

I think we can all agree that communicating a message to a relevant and specific audience is imperative to advertising success. So whether you’re promoting an individual tweet or your actual user account, Twitter has now given you the power to select your audience by interest, device and gender.
Interests can be targeted using two different methods. The first method uses @usernames, which will select users that have the same interests as the followers of the selected user. For example, if you operate an ecommerce store which sells mostly shoes, you might consider targeting users with the same interests as the followers of the @shoesdotcom account.
Hundreds of interest categories are also available to use separately or in conjunction with the @usernames interests. You can select very broad categories, like beauty, education, gaming, music and style or very specific subcategories like hair care, college life, online gaming, jazz and women’s shoes.
The appearance of your Promoted Tweets can also be limited based on a user’s specific device and platform. Several choices are available including desktop/laptop computers, iOS, Android and BlackBerry.
Targeting tweets by device can help you drive users to optimized content on your website. And if you’re tweeting about your new mobile app for a specific mobile device or tablet, it can also help you increase app downloads.
Products, websites and apps can also be gender specific, so Twitter has also enabled the option to segment your target audience by women only, men only or all genders. You might wonder how this is possible since Twitter doesn’t even ask users to specify their gender in their user profiles. The site uses an algorithm to identity a user’s gender by signals like account name, real name, and followed accounts.

Advanced Campaign Controls and Reporting

All new and existing Twitter Ads users have the option to convert to the new advanced campaign dashboard. If you’re interested in deeper campaign controls, multi-campaign optimization and more detailed reports and analytics, you should definitely consider making the switch. However, it’s important to remember that this is a permanent decision – once you go advanced, Twitter claims that you can never go back.
The deeper controls include scheduling start and end dates for your campaigns. Currently, basic dashboard users are only able to manually start and stop campaigns. This feature can be helpful especially if you’re using Twitter to promote time sensitive material like sales promotions and online and offline company events.
Expanded reports can now be generated to analyze how targeted audiences interact with your Promoted Tweets and Promote Accounts. These campaign analytics can also be drilled down by device, location, gender and interests.
In a recent blog post, Twitter Product Manager Christopher Golda, explained that these reports include all engagements that Promoted Tweets receive, including earned media. These further insights will give you a more complete view of the impact your ad campaign has on encouraging engagement and increasing brand visibility.

Ready to Get Targeting? Not So Fast.

Unfortunately just because you own a smaller business or website doesn’t mean you can use these new features immediately. Access to Twitter Ads is still by invitation only, so if you’re not currently signed up, double-check the email connected to your Twitter account for an invitation. If you’re like me, you might have missed (or ignored) the email when it hit your inbox.
resource:http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/03/29/twitter-launches-new-advertising-options-for-small-businesses/

Google Penguin Update : The effects

What Is The Google Penguin Update ?

On the 24th of April 2012 Google released an update to their search engine algorithms. Google named it the Penguin Update. This update is set to target Webspam and certain Black hat techniques that are commonly used to trick the search engines for gaining higher search engine rankings. 
Google makes the following Notes “The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines”.
The Google Penguin update is said to effect about 3.1 percent of search queries. Taking this figure and comparing it to the previous update (Google Panda) which effected about 12 percent of search queries then its clear that this update is smaller then the last.Google Penguin Update do main effects in Internet marketing parts.

So what's changed with Google in the Penguin Update?

Google never disclose the full details of their changes but they do give us slight indications. Some I cover below and others are based on my findings and the findings of many intelligent strategists and active professionals in the Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization Niche.

Authority Sites take a larger share

The first point I would like to note is how Google has started to give more top result spots to Authority sites such as Amazon. This has of course effected many Affiliate marketers and smaller businesses who are looking to remain competitive in the search engines using Organic methods. There is much frustration amongst webmasters due to the adverse effects that  the Penguin update has had on their sites.
Lets look at some areas that have been effected 

Offsite Optimization effects

Offsite Optimization as we know is everything related to your Domain away from your website, basically link building. When looking at link building then its very important that we understand how this can be looked at and determined by Google. For this then its important that we have a little understanding of how things are calculated for each website. We can never be precise as details like this are never disclosed by Google.
Links will be valued and credited individually however they will form a backlink profile for a website which will consist of all links pointing to the site. The best way to look at it is not on a individual backlink bases only but also as a total backlink rating for your profile. What this means is that with time as your backlinks get found then your full backlink profile grows and starts to show patterns which make it easy for Google to see and judge the quality of your backlinks as a whole.
Googles update penalizes certain types of backlinks that are commonly used to manipulate them in order to gain higher search engine rankings, Backlinks such as profile links, blog comments, link farms and low quality links in general. If your site relied heavily on these types of links then its likely you have been effected by this update. One thing to take away from this update is the need to diversify your backlink profile. Dont rely on one type of link source only.

Anchor text Links

Ive read a few discussions on anchor text links and how they have been effected. I think its very important that we understand that in the same way Google want us to use synonyms when working on our onsite optimization then the same should be followed with your anchor text too.  Its also very important to create raw http links as each website profile will also consist of a anchor text profile and if this looks unnatural then you could be penalized.
Vary your anchor text links but also concentrate on building raw http links, think of your website as building a profile on the internet and make it look real.

Low Quality Links

Some signs of low quality sites which should be avoided

• Too many adds on the website
• The site doesnt get updated, Lack of new unique content
• Lots of new content that doesnt make sense or autoblogs
• A website that doesnt get moderated
• Too many outbound links

Exact Match Domains

Ive also read many discussions on Exact match domains and how they have been effected. My honest opinion on this is that there really is no way Google can penalize a website for the domain name. This is unfair and if they did this then im certain many would contest them at court. One thing to note which is very clear to me is that many exact match domain name owners buy these domains for a quick ranking. With the purchase of the domain webmasters will also go and mass build backlinks using the same anchor text and quick backlink fix areas which have been penalized in this Google Penguin update.

Onsite Optimization

Onsite Optimization guidelines have remained the same. If you over optimize then you will get penalized, if you write content with links in it that are out of contents then you will also be penalized. If you are keyword stuffing then again a penalty. These areas we should already know and learned from previous Google Updates. You can read more on Matt Cutts Blog post.

Google Penguin Conclusion

The changes that Google Penguin brings to the search engines will certainly be tweaked by Google so dont be surprised to see rankings drop and fall. Our key focus should be on quality content and building a quality website profile. Keep your backlink profile and anchor text profile strong along with solid fresh content and you will have nothing to fear.

Direction Forward

One thing that has been clear for a very long time is the need to build a social presence. This means making use of high Authority web 2.0 websites such as facebook, twitter, youtube etc – The only difficulty is time, Do we decide to spend our days building our social presence or managing our business and contents?
For myself then I manage both very well. In fact I set out to help webmasters all over the world so if you would like to take advantage of my system that will look after your social presence then please view www.bookmarklovers.com
I hope this Article on the Google Penguin update has cleared up many areas and helps you to optimize your site for the better.
resource:http://www.bigseotechniques.com/blog/google-penguin-update-the-effects/

WSO Of the Day warrior special offer

WSO Of The Day what is it?

WSO's are warrioforum special offers. Special offers geared and tailored for Internet marketers and search engine optimization enthusiasts. If you haven't heard of WSO of the day then in a nutshell it is a Warriorforum Special offer that gets chosen each day by WarriorPlus owner Mike lantz.
The warriorforum is a trusted Internet marketing forum used by thousands of active Internet marketers hungry to earn money. It should be noted that it is one of the highest authority forums in its niche. New techniques are brought to the community by talented members that list their products for sale in the Warrior special Offer (WSO) section.
Each day new products are listed as a WSO. Products such as linkbuilding software, list building techniques, techniques to help you earn money and much more.
The warrioforum has a huge marketplace and with all huge market places come opportunity. Well-known Internet Marketer Mike Lantz saw the opportunity and need for an affiliate programme. A programme that would allow fellow warrioforum members to help each other promote their WSO's. A programme that allowed affiliate commission splitting and tracking. It is now very popular and has sold Millions through its system making many rich.

WSO of the Day, How its Chosen

There are many WSO's each and every day. In order to get WSO of the day then its important you use the warrioplus system to setup your WSO listing. So what the title actually says (WSO of the day) then in fact it should be warriorplus listing of the day – In addition to this the WSO of the day is picked by the owner Mike Lantz. It is our understanding that the WSO of the day is in-fact picked based on visitor conversions. Conversions such as average sale and $ per a hop.
It should be noted that enough statistics for the WSO listing is a must in order to get chosen as WSO of the day. So at least 100 sales with good conversion and upwards of $1.40 per a hop.
resource:http://www.bigseotechniques.com/blog/wso-of-the-day/

3 Crucial Tips For More Social Media Traffic In 2013

Tips to Get More Traffic From Social Media Sites & Tapping into Online communities

Its no secret that Social media sites drive much more traffic then search engines. In fact Social Media Giant Pinterest alone, caters for more referral traffic then Google, LinkedIn and Youtube combined.
Tapping into popular social media sites is a must for any serious marketer and In this article we will cover 3 Crucial tips to Get More Social Media Traffic

Understanding Social Media Communities

The very first thing to get right from the very start is to actually understand the community you are looking to Tap into. The best way to do this is to actually research some of the Demographics of a site. I personally use Quantcast to check a websites demographics. Such as the Age and gender of the community at large.
For example doing a little research on Pinterest you will come to find that the majority of users are Women. This information alone can help us loads and just before you ask the question then let me ask it for you.
Does this mean that if your selling products geared towards men then Pinterest is no good ?
The short answer is NO, Let me explain..
Pinterest is Huge, So you can be sure your targeted Niche will be available however it will not be as large as other niches.
After Viewing the demographics we know the majority of users on Pinterest are women so to truly take advantage of the Pinterest community we need to try and tweak our marketing approach so that it works better for the community at large which is women.
If for example you are marketing Mens clothing or even packs to help you stop smoking where the wider audience is men then tweaking your approach will help conversions.
So instead of a Normal approach trying to catch the attention of smokers you would instead try and catch the attention of women who have partners that smoke- So maybe something like " Tired of your partners Bad breath? Help him quit smoking" or something along them lines. The idea to take away from this is that we should try and engage with the community at large and tailor our marketing methods to the wider crowd.
Some will argue that micro targeting gives the best return. This is true but having a social presence is more important then ever. You will find that working the social communities will not only send direct traffic from the social sites but it will also encourage users to share and be vocal about your product and even increase your social signals which is a must for todays Search Engine Optimization.

Social Media Engagement

As marketers we always want to make notes of our products, pitch whenever we get the opportunity and close deals any time we can. This is truly a wrong approach to starting your social Media Presence and before you will even get the opportunity to build your followers/fans the social sites themselves will close your account.
Its important you engage with your audience, This would mean commenting, liking, following and even sharing. When you start following users or liking there posts then they will come and view your work and if they find something they like they could then share, like, comment etc on it and the process go's on.
Once you have built some trust, followers etc then this is the time to slowly try and monetize your social traffic.

Customizing your Social Media Accounts

Now that you have a Social presence and are engaging with the community you need your brand to make an impact. By customizing your social media profiles you can add your websites url and branding.
Dont forget to customize your profiles and add your branding as this will be a key step to converting your users.

Using Images, Memes and Animated GIFs for More social media Traffic

Images, animated gifs and memes are huge on social media. They get shared much more then anything else and tapping into this latest craze can mean the difference between a trickle of traffic to a boat load of traffic.
resource:http://www.bigseotechniques.com/blog/images-animated-gifs-and-social-media-traffic/

Linking for SEO Evolves: Two Degrees of Separation

Even the most novice SEO student has long since realized that content is king, links (and lots of them) matter, and digital media without external and internal link shares might as well not even come out to play. In recent years, SEO experts have rightly focused on making connections with like-minded content creators, carefully selecting partners that may not be direct competitors, but offer valuable and relevant information. Many less savvy marketers have therefore assumed that links are links, and the more the merrier. As Google algorithms have become all the more sophisticated, it is now readily apparent that all links are not created equal, and the company webmasters keep is key to their own search rankings. Digital creators must now think carefully about who they link to, who in turn links back to them, and – what most currently do not consider – every last link their partners feature too. This concept is currently referred to as co-citation (or co-occurrence in some circles).
Simply put, co-citation in SEO is about the two degrees of separation rule – who you know, and who they know as well. It’s not enough to have a lot of link partners – quality once again trumps quantity.

Co-Citation Breakdown
In academic circles, co-citation is old, but still very relevant, news. If Professor X writes an article about black holes, he has little to crow about if his research never receives citations from other journals. Furthermore, if the black hole article is only cited by small or unheard of institutions with little to no academic clout, Professor X has still not hit a homerun. What he wants, obviously, is for the Harvards and Yales of the world to herald his article as a game changer, and to make relevant and notable citations to his research. That is the academic holy grail of co-citations. In the world of SEO, things work remarkably similar.
In the old days of SEO (going back way over a decade) links reigned supreme. If your content had a bundle of incoming links, rankings increased. But as link share sites starting spamming the digital stratosphere, algorithms caught on and upped the ante, thereby discouraging the horribly annoying trend of websites that simply linked to a gazillion other websites, with no actual content (which equaled an abysmal user experience.)
Then came the emphasis on more classic ranking tactics: keywords, anchor text, and the authority of the incoming and outgoing links. Authority, of course, references the reputation of your content partners. IMDB, as an example, maintains a much higher authority over a link to Frank’s Movie Stuff – which is obviously common sense. The newest factor these days with co-citation, however, revolves around association. It’s no longer enough for you to ensure your links are current, relative and authoritative. You must also be aware of who your partners link to. If you link to Frank’s Movie Stuff, and they link to a plethora of sites with bad SEO reputations, you’ve just damaged your own ranking too. Once again, who you know matters.

What Makes Bad Neighborhoods so Bad?

It’s fairly easy for Google to spot sites that link out to clusters of bad domains. “Bad” domains are defined as sites that have little value to the user, employing spam-like tactics that are simply after traffic and user data, without offering any relevant content or services. Domains like these often create a neighborhood of like-minded links, because it wouldn’t make sense to send a user to a content-rich site in a good neighborhood and spoil the endless loop of profit-making clicks. Therefore, bad domains are almost always a part of bad neighborhoods.
Even if you never link to a spammy blog network, you must take note if one of your content partners does. Search algorithms absolutely employ the old adage of “guilty by association.” So think twice when seeking out external links – make sure any linking domain employs the same high-value tactics that you do, or your ranking will suffer.

It’s a Matter of Semantics

Co-citation is not just about link association; word choice is also imperative. As a result, co-citation is often now referenced as co-occurrence, which incorporates semantic similarity. SEO expert Rand Fishkin explains this beautifully in a November 2012 video about co-occurrence.
He suggests that we consider the query “cell phone ratings”, mentioned on a site that also talks about Consumer Reports, but does not link to ConsumerReports.org – say they simply make the statement: “cell phones ratings as compared to Consumer Reports.” Google doesn’t care the link is missing – its algorithms know to put two and two together.
How does this impact your business? It makes keywords related to your brand that much more critical. If high-authority sites simply make a reference to keywords directly tied to your brand, your ranking can increase. You therefore don’t need partners to link to you. This is a huge, fascinating, and uncharted new SEO trend. We are now seeing sites receiving substantial rankings without the typical telltale signs: anchor text, article keywords and text, title tags, etc. And the reason is co-citation / co-occurrence. This is perhaps the most innovative and exciting new SEO trend in years.

In a Nutshell
Co-citation is admittedly a complex concept, but there are a few considerations to add to your SEO know-how going forward. Here are the key takeaways:
* There are good domain neighborhoods, and not so good ones – stay away from the spammy networks completely. This means you don’t link to them, they don’t link to you, and your content partners follow the same policy.
* Authority rules – link to and from reputable sites that are relevant to your content and business.
* Quality over quantity is still a better formula. You want links, but a lot of bad links do far more damage than a few targeted links.
* Links are not the only cornerstone to SEO success – words matter too. Study keyword trends and tactics carefully as you choose your own brand’s top semantic associations. If partners won’t link to you outright, get them to talk about you with selected keywords – this alone can increase your ranking.
resource:http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/03/20/linking-for-seo-evolves-two-degrees-of-separation/

Study Sheds New Light on Google’s Search Algorithm

On March 7th, the entrepreneurial-focused site BusinessBolts.com released a fascinating Google algorithms study dispelling a few myths about actual SEO trends. Focusing solely on Google’s algorithms, the study has uncovered critical data for business owners looking to maximize their placement on Google search engine results pages (SERPs).
To drill down into the current landscape, the study randomly selected 100 key phrases ranging from two to six words. Next, they analyzed only the first five results in each Google search, creating a test pool of 500 different web pages from which to gather data. Google Adwords ads, images, shopping sets and news site sets were eliminated from the analyzed test cases, ensuring actual web pages alone were studied.

Keywords, Title Tags and Content Length
The study analyzed factors such as the full URL, title tags, headlines, subheadings, word count for body text, images, videos and, of course, backlinks. Only 50% of the top five pages featured the key phrase in their title tag, and only 43% had it in their header. It turns out that, despite the advice of many top SEO firms, less is actually more. Key phrases are obviously critical to set the tone and inform search engines of your content’s theme, but overuse of key phrases does not gain sites any additional ranking mojo. The study states, “If you’re going to include exact key phrases, you really only need to include them one time.” The first main takeaway is therefore a straightforward one: don’t over-optimize.
There’s also a heavy emphasis on the importance of including your key phrase in either your title or headline (or both, but that’s not absolutely necessary). Knowing that overuse of key words doesn’t garner higher rankings, remember that using the same words repeatedly makes for awkward reading, and is a surefire way to turn off visitors. The message here is simple: highlight your key words, but write your content in a way that sounds natural. While a search engine might not appreciate copy that flows well, your visitors will.
How much you write also seems to play a role. Web pages ranking in the #1 spot often had a much higher word count than those in the #5 spot, by about 120 words. The study shows that an excellent word count for your body text is about 900. Bear in mind that this particular statistic showed a vast amount of variety. Overall, however, a higher word count does seem to positively impact your SERP rankings.

Images and Video
Does a picture say a thousand words to Google? The answer: not really. Of the 500 ranking pages, the average number of images was seven – but many featured none at all. Videos fared even worse, with a less than one per page average. The findings showed almost no connection to images or rich media in the Google algorithm. Whether examining the #1 or #5 ranked page, the findings were consistent.

Backlinks and Home Pages vs. Internal Pages
Many business owners struggle with obtaining dozens and dozens of qualified backlinks, but is all this networking still super crucial to Google rankings? At first glance, the study seems to indicate the answer is no. Many of the top pages had zero backlinks. But before you abandon all outreach efforts, know that further inspection showed that high ranking pages without backlinks actually had significant links to the domain’s homepage. Overall, this is great news for business owners. It means that you don’t need to have significant links across the web for all the major pages on your site. As long as you have a nice flow of backlinks to even one core page, your entire site will reap the benefits. But you can’t be lazy in this aspect of site building – backlinks are still king.
Although the stats were all over the map, it’s clear a significant number of backlinks are needed for a stellar ranking. On average, the #1 ranking site for each key phrase had 662 backlinks, whereas the #5 page for each had just 142. That means the Google’s top pages have five times more backlinks than those just a few results down. When it comes to backlinks, as with actual word count, more is still more.
Another surprising reveal from the study is that only 12% of all top ranking pages were homepages. This tells us there is truly an equal playing field for internal pages to rank well too – another burst of good news if perhaps your homepage isn’t your strongest landing page. Google doesn’t seem to mind.

The Importance of the Social Scene
As expected, one should never underestimate the power of the social stratosphere. Of the pages studied, the highest ranking performers were tweeted on average 371 times. Facebook stats for the top dogs showed an average of 1512 Facebook likes and 988 shares. These are fairly epic numbers. As with backlinks, the difference between the #1 and #5 ranking pages showed a vast gap in the level of sharing. While it’s unclear if Google truly tracks social signals in their algorithms, it is abundantly clear that more social sharing means a higher likelihood of an awesome ranking.
While the BusinessBolts study is not enough to bank your business on, they did put significant time and thought into the process, and produced some actual data revealing valuable trends and information. It’s critical to analyze cold hard data over the speculation of SEO firms, no matter how brilliant or instinctive their executives may be. Google’s algorithms are dynamic and mysterious, but seeing raw facts helps to better shape your successful ranking strategy. The takeaways here are pretty easy to ascertain: write valuable and keyword rich copy without going overboard, use images as appropriate but without pressure to meet any quota, and continue your efforts to gain credible links en masse. Lastly, it’s obvious social networking is completely integral to a respectable ranking, so don’t skimp on your social strategy. Most of all, remember that SEO is an ever-changing landscape, so keep your eye out for more factual studies, and never get too comfortable that you know all there is to know.
resource:http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/03/18/study-sheds-new-light-on-googles-search-algorithm/

The Google AdWords Landscape

 We tend to think of AdWords as the domain of PPC specialists, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Google’s SERP advertising has a huge impact on the position and effectiveness of organic results. So, I wanted to ask a simple question – what does the AdWords “landscape” actually look like in 2013? In other words, where are the ads, how many are there, what combinations occur in the “wild”, and how often do they show up? I’ll dive into some details below, but the answer looks something like this (click the image for a full-sized view)…

Embed this image:
<div style="width:604px;"><div> <a target="_blank" href="http://cdnext.seomoz.org/1362430343_3b2eff4e74ca876e4317a7557b0ececc.png"><img width="600" height="795" alt="Google AdWords Landscape Infographic" src="http://cdn.seomoz.org/img/upload/google-adwords-landscape-600.png" style="border: #cccccc 1px solid; padding: 1px;" /></a></div> <div style="text-align:right; font-size:11px; margin-right: 5px;"> Produced by <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-google-adwords-landscape-infographic">SEOmoz</a>. ©2013.</div> </div>

The Methodology

We collected data from 10,000 page-one Google SERPs via Google.com on a weekday during normal business hours. Personalization was turned off, and the crawler emulated a logged-out Chrome browser. We parsed the major ad blocks (which have consistent DOM markers) and the links within those blocks. Keywords and categories were pulled from AdWords’ keyword tools, with 500 keywords coming from each of 20 categories.

A Few Caveats

Naturally, keywords pulled from the AdWords’ research tools are more likely to have commercial intent than the “average” keyword (if such a thing exists), so these percentages may not be indicative of the entire world of search queries. We did run these numbers at other time periods and on other days, and the results were fairly consistent.
These statistics were computed by unique queries, not by query volume. The results seem to be very similar, though. For example, we found ads on 85.2% of the queries crawled – if we weight those queries by Google’s “global” volume, we get ad penetration of 84.5%. The correlation between the presence of ads and query volume was virtually non-existent (r=-0.018). The correlation between the presence of ads and Google’s competition metric was high (r=0.874). This is probably not surprising, since “competition” is essentially defined by how many advertisers are vying for any given query.

The Changing Landscape

This is only a snapshot of a rapidly changing picture. For example, paid shopping results are still relatively new, but we discovered them on almost 20% of the queries we crawled. Unlike the traditional AdWords blocks, paid shopping can appear in multiple positions and forms, including the larger, upper-right format previously reserved for Knowledge Graph.
Even traditional top ads are evolving, with ads showing extensions, expanded site-links, lead generation forms, etc.  Expect Google to experiment with new formats on the top and right, and to blend advertising into the Knowledge Graph area to increase CTR. This changing landscape will impact the efforts of people in both paid and organic search, so keep your eyes open, and don’t assume that this is something only the PPC team has to worry about.
Resource:www.seomoz.org/blog/the-google-adwords-landscape-infographic

SEO Tips for 2013: Author Rank, Co-occurrence and More

2012 has been a volatile year for the search engine optimization industry.
Google released a number of algorithm updates, including the Exact Match Domain (EMD) update, 13 Panda updates, changes to actual search results pages, unnatural link warnings through Google Webmaster Tools, the Knowledge Graph, and the list goes on.
If the past is any indication of the trajectory, the industry will continue to change and evolve, and effective campaigns will be maintained through a diverse and holistic perspective to SEO.
Here are my top SEO tips for 2013 that I think should be on everyone’s radar:

Google+ Communities

It’s no secret that Google is using the data gleaned from Google+ to return more socially-influenced search results. Google’s latest endeavor is the new “Communities” feature for Google+, which allows users to create and join communities based on common interests. With Author Rank becoming more of a factor in search engine optimization, you should be leveraging Google Plus Communities to build your own community of influencers and content producers.

Social Signals

In a Google Webmaster video from 2010, Matt Cutts mentioned that data from social sites, such as followers of a brand for example, is being used to influence rankings in the same way that Google’s PageRank did in years past. While social signals are just a piece of the overall ranking pie, integrating social media into a campaign should be part of your SEO strategy for 2013.
Data from Searchmetrics:

AuthorRank

AuthorRank is a metric that Google will be using in 2013 to measure the authority and reputation of the author of content on the web. Authors who write about specific topics will be able to increase their authority, and subsequently their Author Rank, by tying their content to their Google+ profile, and also through +1s achieved on the content itself. Google’s Authorship Team recently said, “As part of the Google Authorship pilot program, we’re experimenting with different ways to identify and highlight authors in search, such as having people implement authorship markup or signing up on our authorship page.”
Graphic from Mike Arnesen:

Link Removal

Websites that have unnatural links in their portfolios, and have been notified by Google about a ‘manual spam action’, can now disavow those links through their Google Webmaster Tools account. As the industry has shifted away from ‘link building’ and is incorporating more ‘link earning’ methods, this tool is something that every SEO consultant should be aware of.

Mobile Search

Mobile search is on the rise, and more people are using their tablets and smart phones than ever before. According to research from Business Insider, there were 835-million smart phone users in 2011, and global Internet usage is expected to double by 2015. A majority of these users will be mobile, and incorporating mobile search into your strategy should absolutely be on your priority list.
Slide from Business Insider:

Facebook EdgeRank

Facebook’s “EdgeRank” algorithm determines how its users see content in the news feed, and the social network estimates only 16-percent of a page’s fans will actually see their updates. Now, brands will need to either pay to promote their posts and possibly reach a larger audience, or ramp up their strategy on Google Plus.

Page SEO vs. Site SEO

While strategies to increase the authority of specific landing pages on a website are still important and vital to the health of an SEO campaign, it should not be the only strategy an SEO consultant should have. Links should be built to pages across the site, and a holistic, site-wide approach to search engine optimization should be incorporated into your strategy moving forward.

Local SEO

As mobile search becomes more mainstream, and searcher intent becomes more local in focus, businesses will need to focus part of their efforts on showing up for local queries in 2013 and beyond. There are resources for building these local citations, and businesses should also claim their profiles to make sure they are getting in front of these queries.

Co-occurrence and Ranking Signals

Google is rapidly targeting sites with low quality content and ‘shady’ practices such as keyword stuffing and link farms, and has incorporated other methods for ranking websites other than keyword-based links. In other words, ranking signals aren’t solely based on links, and neither should a campaign. You can see content on the web mentioning terms, and tying those terms with a brand or website, and the combination of those is likely being considered as a ‘co-occurrence’, and helping that particular website rank for that term. More information about co-occurrence will be discussed in the future as we learn more about it, but the theory and supporting evidence behind this is that search engines are relying less on links for ranking signals.

Link Earning

It’s a post-Panda and Penguin world, and that means now, more than ever, we should be focusing on building relationships over links. Understanding people likes, habits, intentions personalities and problems helps us create better content, better calls-to-action and better social profiles, and subsequently leads to naturally-occurring links over time.

Video Infographics and Content Re-purposing

Content can include blog posts, infographics, video, audio, and the list goes on. Re-purposing that content for use across multiple platforms is a way to make that content stretch further, and one way to do that is through the use of video infographics. Using a platform like Adobe Aftereffects, you can re-purpose the infographic, and upload it to YouTube and Vimeo, or upload it directly to your website. Video infographics are a way to add life to an otherwise mundane world of infographic marketing.
Video infographic by Rufus Blacklock:



The new year offers a chance to seek a fresh perspective, so take some time to think about how you can breathe some life into your website through creative Internet marketing practices.


Article Source: http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-tips-for-2013-author-rank-cooccurrence-and-more/