Best Keyword Targeting: Important Keys To Growing Traffic & Revenue

News by Seowebmount,

Effective keywords are important in SEO strategies for online adverting to your biggest traffic and revenue increases your business or products.
There are some point for care

1. Gather Relevant Data

In this pints, before site optimization, you research of your business, audience requirement. For that, you check your business services or product against others.

In Google Keyword Planner, you can search relevant keywords according to your business.

2. Prioritize Your Targets

Google suggest for long-tail keywords, ther are create more potential for your business. creation source as Keywordtool.io,

3. Take Action 

The main important factor:

    Content Marketing
    Topic marketing
    Personalization
    Positioning as an typical expert/authority
    Retargeting
    Niche specialization (e.g. by Weather, Season or Trends)

The Facebook Algorithm Change and Its Impact

By Seowebmount

Ask a business owner or marketer about the recent Facebook algorithm changes, and you’re likely to be met with a glare. The social networking site switched the way updates are seen with the aim of putting more high-quality content in newsfeeds and knocking out posts based on memes aimed at building cheap traffic. It was hard to argue with the theory, but in implementation it’s been borderline disastrous for many sites.

That’s because it’s not just the viral and meme sites that Facebook was targeting that have suffered. Businesses say they have seen their Facebook views plunge from what they were before the changes were put in place. Many have complained vocally, but Facebook doesn’t seem inclined to make any further tweaks.

Here’s a more in-depth look at the changes that were implemented and exactly what impact they are having on businesses.

What Facebook Changed

Every social or search site is constantly updating its algorithm to reflect the evolving nature of its audience. So when Facebook announced in December that it was making modifications, it was hardly a surprise. The social media site outlined the changes in a blog post, but they boiled down to:

• More relevant articles in newsfeeds: Facebook wants what shows up in your newsfeed toclosely mirror your tastes. So, for example, if you have clicked on a lot of articles about a certain sporting team, content about that team is more likely to come up in your feed.
• Higher-quality articles: Facebook says surveys have indicated that people like to see articles with news or intellectual value in their newsfeeds, versus cheap photo memes on trending topics posted just to grab traffic. That also means fewer memes popping up in a newsfeed.
• Related content: After clicking on an article in a newsfeed, several other related articlesnow appear below it on your newsfeed, giving more information on the topic that you’ve just read about.
• Bumping up older content: People often comment on a status and then don’t follow the conversation any further because they forget about it. Facebook is now bumping up previous posts to the top of newsfeeds to give people a chance to reengage with a status after others have posted on it.

Why the changes? Everything boils down to engagement. Facebook doesn’t want people getting turned off by the memes from sites like Upworthy that keep showing up in their feeds just because they’re trending; the site wants content people engage with so that it can sell that engagement to advertisers.

Plus, Facebook takes its high-value concept very seriously. It wants to be seen by advertisers as a site that provides people with what they want, not a place where spammers go to play. That kills any sort of prestige that might attract advertising.

Declines in Organic Reach

Since the changes were implemented late last year, there’s been a backlash among businesses who say that their organic reach has taken a hit. Organic reach is basically the views that your content got without you advertising it. It includes people who saw your Facebook post from your page, as well as those who saw it on others’ pages (i.e., one of their friends commented on your status so it showed up in their newsfeed), plus viral views. Organic reach is separate from paid reach, which includes everyone who saw your content stemming from an ad.

The numbers seem to back up these complaints. For example, data culled by Moz from Edgeranker found that organic reach measured as a percentage of fans who saw a post fell from 26 percent in September 2012 to 7.7 percent in December 2013, when the new algorithm went into effect. That’s a huge dropoff.

Another study done right after the change was implemented found that reach plunged by 44 percent in the week after the switch. Surprisingly, only one page of the hundreds studied by Ignite Social Media saw organic reach rise.

Facebook has argued that while reach has fallen, engagement has actually remained strong. That backs up its argument for relevancy, meaning that it’s essentially trimming the fat. While fewer people may see your status updates, the ones who do see them are also the ones most likely to click or respond. And isn’t that the goal of any social media post? Still, businesses seem unconvinced that this is actually the case and argue they’re missing out on thousands of likes and shares because of the change.

How Businesses Can Increase Reach

Clearly it’s a bold new world of Facebook. Most businesses have spent the past few months kvetching about the change, but it seems unlikely to be abandoned anytime soon. Facebook made a few further tweaks in January 2014 to its policies to devalue text-only posts from businesses after noting that they generate less interaction than text-only posts from friends.

So how can businesses make sure that their posts are still being seen with all the changes? Here are a few ideas that should boost those sagging organic reach numbers:

• Make sure content is 100 percent unique. If lots of businesses are posting about the same subject, your post is much less likely to be seen because Facebook starts thinking you’re piggybacking on a meme. Whenever possible, post about a subject no one else is talking about.
• Try story bumping. Remember how one of those Facebook changes was bumping engaging but older statuses back into the newsfeed? Use this to your advantage. Post content that people are likely to comment on to get your status bumping back up into people’s newsfeeds.
• Include high-quality links. Quality content will always be judged kindly by Facebook. The better your link, the better the chance people will see it.
• Avoid text-only statuses. It’s easy to get lazy on Facebook, posting just a couple of words to give your page the appearance of activity. But asking “How’s everyone doing today?” won’t get you as much of that key engagement as planning out a post with pictures, video or other visual elements. Think of Facebook as a needy lover: The more attention you give it, the happier it is.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/03/07/facebook-algorithm-change-impact/ 

SEO Machine PRO Automates and Streamlines Your SEO Process

By Seowebmount

I'll cut straight to the chase; SEO Machine PRO has arrived — the newest and most powerful Search Engine Optimization software program that is going to take proper care of all of the tedious SEO-related tasks that can slow down your website promotion.

I spoke to Bram recently, the creator with this ingenious tool in which he is a little modest. So I thought you must know a bit more about him.

Did you know that Bram was the winner of the 2011 SEO Idol contest? This is a global competition sponsored of the Israeli jewelry company Shiree Odiz where the brightest SEO professionals from all over the world compete to see who can come up using the most effective software to streamline the company's SEO protocols.

Bram beat out thousands of other competitors to claim the top prize. His award-winning idea, which more than doubled the traffic and sales of the website throughout the course of 2011, served as the starting point for SEO Machine PRO.

The SEO Idol contest might have put Bram on the map, but he's never been one to rest on his laurels. He's taken the notoriety and prize money he received from winning that prestigious competition and put it to work developing what may be the fastest, most efficient option to streamline SEO ever created.

After assembling a group of highly-specialized web experts, Bram developed a one-of-a-kind software program that removes the essential tedious tasks of SEO and performs them automatically so that you can focus on building your online business.

I thought you ought to learn about what a truly remarkable young online marketer Bram is and exactly how the SEO Machine PRO software is certainly going to revolutionise your online business.

Eight Great Content Creation Tools You Should Be Using

by Seowebmount

The strength of content marketing is well demonstrated but creating strong content takes innovation. This means enlisting the help of some simple but powerful tools that combine user engagement and attractive presentation to facilitate brand perception. Here’s a look at eight great resources you can use to take your content to the next level.

ThingLink

If engagement is the key, then ThingLink is the tool for the job. Research shows that images engage customers and resonate to a notable degree on social networks and, for this reason, should be used extensively. But images embedded on web pages should offer more than a reiteration of the graphic that curried the visitor in the first place.

ThingLink can be embedded on web pages and used to mark up static imagery with accompanying videos, social networking buttons, annotations, and more. In addition to making already engaging content more dynamic, each image that utilizes the service comes with attribution, so that users who view your creation over social channels know who’s responsible.

Skitch

Collaborating on content is no small task. Creative ideas bounce back and forth and expressing visual concepts in verbal language always seems to fall just short. Enter Skitch. The brainchild of note-taking powerhouse Evernote, Skitch allows designers, content creators, and managers to add robust indicators, color coded text, and shapes to screen captures, uploaded images, PDFs, and data copied to the clipboard. In addition to making content commentary more attractive, the myriad options enable visual communication that a Skype call or email simply can’t touch.

Word2CleanHTML

Writing copy requires an effective Word processor. While hardly groundbreaking information, the caveats of each copy-writing platform can cause headaches down the road. Solutions like Simplenote offer format-free writing but no formatting options, and Word offers extensive formatting but in its own anachronistic language. Converting copy to web content should be easy and Word2CleanHTML offers exactly that. The platform not only remedies some of Word’s more frustrating idiosyncrasies, but also replaces tabs, bold text, italics, and smart quotes with HTML friendly alternatives, which should greatly facilitate the transfer to your blog.

Google Fonts

With design importance rising in the minds of consumers and mobile screens offering unique display challenges, typography is seeing more consideration as a factor in effective web design. Unfortunately, previous attempts at customizing text appearance required that users have the designated font installed on their machine, leaving out many attractive and superior options and replacing them with lesser alternatives. Google Fonts uses their straightforward API to allow you to embed fonts on a page so that your text is displayed as you intended. In addition, the site offers a gauge that indicates how their inclusion will affect page-load times, optimizing both appearance and performance.

Canva

Attractive content is replacing informative content as tired eyes judge items on a moment’s notice, but attractive, informative content is the end game. Canva provides this marriage by offering en vogue design resources and a user-friendly interface that makes creating aesthetically pleasing visual resources a snap. The service does provide premium content for $1, but even at this expenditure, the value delivered per dollar may far exceed that of private design help.

Infogram

Infographics are a hot commodity these days and for good reason. Communicating interesting and valid information through facts provides authority while presenting them in a pleasing manner attracts viewers. But while most of us have information to share, few of us have the design acumen needed to create something worth its salt. Infogram helps shortcut the process with an engine that allows for data entry, expression, and arrangement, meaning high-quality infographics in a short time. The solution is no substitute for distinctive design work, but for firms on a shoestring budget, it’s a resource worth a look.

Haiku Deck

The boring PowerPoints of old team meetings are becoming a thing of the past. The din of content and information is requiring that firms both internally and externally adapt to the nature of the human psyche which requires a little more than plain text to hold attention. Haiku Deck, like the previously mentioned platforms, offers high-end design knowledge so that you can leverage it to improve content. Offering a gallery of templates, beautiful typographic options, and embed capabilities, delivering high-quality presentations has never been easier.

Storify

The web revolves around communications. Sharing on sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter may seem frivolous the lion’s share of the time, but real news and real events unfold on these social channels. Storify recognizes this phenomenon and harnesses it to create more engaging content that’s driven by users. By embedding tweets, photos, videos, and more from a wide variety of sources, your blog’s content can carry the extra element of involvement by directly citing web media. In addition, the platform notifies sources that their information has been shared, opening conversations and connecting you with customers.

Putting content on the Internet is a needed first step to attaining greater market share. Doing so optimally, leveraging the power of interactive media and attractive design, will give your words meaning and turn your viewers into customers. Utilize these simple tools to enhance your blog posts and videos and open the door for conversation between your organization and your customer base in dynamic new ways.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/01/06/eight-great-content-creation-tools-using/

How Social Media Has Evolved

By Seowebmount

Remember MySpace? It’s difficult to believe how far we’ve come since then. Home pages used to just represent a fancier form of e-mail. Bulletins, which were essentially the old version of today’s status updates, had to be clicked for users to view them. You had ‘Top Friends’ so you could show off which of your Internet buddies you preferred (which people eventually realized could be considered quite rude). Social media held so much mystery. Comments and messages made people feel accomplished.

Since then, times have changed. Let’s check out what happened.

The Marketing Realization 

So what happened to that mysterious and magical time? The answers lie primarily in marketing and advertising. Today, many people probably can’t even hear the words social media without thinking of marketing in some way. Not only do we see constant advertisements all over our home pages, sidebars, and headers, but now we see how others feel about brands and products.

Before social media, you only knew what your friends’ favorite TV shows were if they bothered to specifically tell you. The only way you could instantly contact them was if they dialed up the Internet and signed onto AOL Instant Messenger. Now, with the technology of high speed and satellite Internet it’s easier and faster than ever to check in on your friends. We see status updates, likes, and preferences from hundreds of people we know every time we sign in to our accounts.

Your Personal Information Isn’t So Personal 

Marketing companies caught on to this phenomenon early. They saw the potential with MySpace, which explains why Fox (well, technically, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp) bought MySpace for $580 million dollars in 2005. Social media sites have access to everything you post — that means personal information and private conversations, among other pieces of information. The more you use the site, the more information you give away.

Websites like Facebook, MySpace, and Google send all the information users post to marketing companies. These marketing companies take your personal information, match it with all of your preferences, and create their own profile of you for research purposes. This provides the biggest influence for change in social media.

Once marketing companies hooked on to this, social media became designed around its audience’s wants and needs. You like basketball? Your favorite social media site probably asks if you want to officially ‘Like’ Lebron James or NBA 2K14, even if you’ve never clicked ‘Like’ on a basketball media page. You’re a single woman in her 30s? You probably get ads for dating sites that’ll help you meet somebody you can truly get along with. Before, you had to specifically type in or look for these subjects to learn more about them.

Real Life Actions Dictated By Social Media Perceptions 

Today, it seems as if social media controls its users almost as much as users control social media. In the past, nobody worried much about what they said or did on MySpace. If anything, it was a place to reinvent oneself. Rebelling was as simple as having a profile and making somewhat unpopular statements. Now people worry about what they post in the event that it could cost them their job or even their marriage. According to several articles, Facebook has become one of the leading causes of divorce in the United States.

Some companies (though not many considering the power behind this) have their own employees acting as brand advocates via social media. I’ve seen people on my own limited friends list post almost exclusively about the company they work for. It’s hard to ignore when somebody uses their personal profile — which most people use as a way to express themselves individually — to vehemently promote a corporation. To the average viewer, it looks like this person has decided that their employers have more importance than just about anything in their life.

A New Marketing Landscape 

We have now hit the age where marketing becomes about engaging consumers instead of advertising to them. Social media became flooded with games early on, and the popularity led companies to realize people would rather do something than listen to or watch something when on the site. Contests can be found everywhere, because now they’re so easily accessible and can have so many participants at once. This makes them more fun for the people involved, pushing the brand name further and generating more revenue which, in turn, makes even more contests available.

Soon we’ll see Google running the same kind of events as Red Bull, getting people together to take part and compete just to get its name out there.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/01/03/social-media-evolved/

Bounce Rate: The Arch-Nemesis of Any Website Owner

By Seowebmount

If a lot of people come to your website and then leave immediately, you have a bounce rate problem on your hands. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who come to your site and then depart without viewing any other pages.

A high rate usually means that your site isn’t satisfying users’ needs for one reason or another.

It is the arch-nemesis of any website owner.

A high bounce rate could hurt your business, especially if you’re investing your marketing dollars in SEO or PPC advertising. Reducing your website’s rate is the first step to improving your website’s overall performance and conversion rates. To reduce your site’s bounce rate, you need to make a powerful first impression and engage visitors from the moment they enter your site. As a rule of thumb, a normal bounce rate for a website is about 50%. If your website’s rate surpasses 60%, you should be worried.

Here are some things you can do to lower your website’s bounce rate and boost visitor retention.

Decrease Load Times

If your website has lots of widgets, plug-ins, high resolution images, and other extras, you might want to remove them in order to decrease load times. Users with slow Internet connections will leave your site if it takes too long to load.

Improve Readability

Contrast is essentially the difference between two colors. If your website’s design doesn’t have good color contrast, it’ll strain a visitor’s eyes and make your site difficult to read, which could lead to an increase in bounce rates. A common culprit is white text on a black background.

Keep Content Clear & Concise

One of the most common causes of high bounce rates is confusion. If people can’t figure out what your website is about upon first glance, they won’t stick around. To prevent this from happening, write clear, concise content that fulfills a visitor’s needs and avoid writing vague, general content. Additionally, be sure to include clear calls-to-action in highly visible locations, so visitors know exactly what to do next.

Check Browser Performance

Make sure that your website is compatible with all major browsers, including Safari, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox. Use an analytics program to determine if parts of your site have trouble loading on certain browsers.

Make Sure Navigation Is Clear

Your site’s navigation should be clear and easily accessible. People won’t stay on your site for very long if they have trouble finding the pages they’re looking for. Consider repeating the navigation menu in your site’s footer. Add a search box and site map to your website if your site has a large amount of content.

Use the Right Keywords

Look at the keyword report in your analytics program to determine which keywords have the highest bounce rates. Targeting popular keywords is useless if the traffic they bring isn’t relevant to your website. Too often, websites target certain keywords but fail to deliver the content those visitors seek.

Avoid Distracting Visitors

Don’t interrupt visitors who are engaged with your content with audio-ads, pop-up ads, and the like. Your goal should be to present the information that visitors seek and stay out of their way. If you try to get visitors to sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your blog or chat live with a representative while they’re immersed in your content, you could frustrate them and cause them to click away.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/01/02/bounce-rate-arch-nemesis-website-owner/

Timeless Tips for Search Engine Optimization in 2014

By Seowebmount

The New Year — 2014 — is just a few weeks away. This means, even though we are not yet through with our search engine optimization check list for this year, we have to start focusing on the SEO factors that will play a big role in the coming year.

Some aspects of SEO in the current or even previous years will remain constant, but there will be new factors which we need to consider for successful SEO to make our mark as online marketers in 2014.

The following tips will help you get the best results out of your search engine optimization strategy in 2014:

Watch out for Google +:

Google+ is getting more and more integrated into Google’s search experience. Don’t be surprised to see more of Google’s services becoming tightly merged. Start building up your Google+ presence with healthy followers and engagement. Also, the activity on a Google+ account will have a larger impact on search rankings. Hence, when using a Google+ account for your business, try to connect with other people in your industry and post helpful but unique, industry-relevant content.

Create a structured data markup scheme

Having a structured data markup scheme for your website is very important. Make sure you’ve got your address (physical and e-mail), reviews, products and other data laid out clearly for Google. This will make it easier for Google to crawl your site and, therefore, make it easier to rank.

Focus on local and social:

The word is out — searchers want local results for most of their search queries. People use search engines for research but they want to buy locally. Consequently, there would be a wider roll-out of the carousel on all local categories. It makes sense to optimize content, citations, links and offline marketing for better local search result pages in Google.

Also, start building online social communities on social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for your local brand. Engage your followers and answer inquiries and messages at least once a day. Build relationships — brand will follow.

Invest in a mobile-friendly site:

We are witnessing the biggest trend in mobile usage with 30 percent of referrals and growth coming from mobile now. This is only going to grow in 2014. Invest in a quick-loading, mobile-friendly site for your business; it affects your Google rankings.

Play by the new algorithms:

Google makes more changes in its algorithms (Knowledge Graphs, Local Carousel, Google Now, Hummingbird) than people are capable of coping with. That is why it’s necessary to stay abreast of algorithm changes.

• Reviews are important for your local search results and company reputation. They are influencing rankings. But going overboard on fake reviews might not be such a good idea. Yelp, CitySearch and other companies are making persistent efforts to reduce fake reviews; it won’t be long before Google updates it algorithms to detect the fakes.
• Don’t indulge in manipulative citations and spammy link building. The year 2014 might see Google taking action against sites that create manipulative citations and links.
• Also, it’s no longer just about targeting those specific keywords and phrases to ramp up your ranking. With the Hummingbird algorithm, users can now run searches for longer phrases and still get faster and more accurate results.

Remember, Content is still the king

At the end of the day, content still rules. Create great, unique and engaging content on a regular basis. Do the necessary formatting according to Google’s best practices and then share it through social channels.
SEO is under a big transition. The winners will be the ones that adopt the quickest and play by the rules.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/12/03/timeless-tips-search-engine-optimization-2014/

Innovative Marketing Trends to Date from 2013

There are many timeless elements to creating top-notch, results-oriented online marketing campaigns. If it’s not engaging, memorable, or oozing with a little wow factor, there won’t likely be much fanfare. Every year, however, smart folks figure out new and innovative ways to lure in the masses, manifest a rags to riches story, and create tools and campaigns that become bona fide trends and legends.

We may only be in the fall of 2013, but already there have been many notable new movements that have created a stir in the world of marketing. It’s a bit early to tell which of these have significant staying power, but here are a few of the most critical innovations that business owners should take notice of.

It’s a Gamer’s World

Gamification may not be a new term, but it’s proving to be a trend that seems to grow and grow. Business owners have become hip to the essential element of engagement through all marketing channels, and there are few activities that prove more engaging than an addictive video game. Couple that with the game-playing obsession proudly touted in younger generations, and it’s clear to see how and why adding gaming elements to websites and marketing campaigns is exploding.

2013 has likely seen more gamification growth thanks to platforms like PunchTab and BigDoor, tools that make the integration of gaming elements into many business models a more seamless and organic process. Plus, apps like FourSquare have turned mundane tasks like running errands into a fun-filled, social-centric gaming experience. If you haven’t integrated a level of status or fun into your efforts yet, and your industry is appropriate for the task, make this a top consideration.

Refocusing on Retention

When we think of internet marketing, most people conjure up thoughts of acquisition efforts – ad banners, viral campaigns, and anything that brings eyeballs to websites. Marketers have been more and more aware that retention – or loyalty – marketing can be far more profitable (and honestly, a lot more fun, too). Existing customers are feeling a whole lot more love this year, as trends point toward rewards and bounties for loyalty, not just for new sign-ups.

It’s a brilliant move, overall, because potential customers that witness how well existing customers are taken care of won’t need a newbie promotion to lure them in. The promise of long term care, discounts, and overall attention can do plenty to move your acquisition numbers, too.

Crowdsourcing Goes Mainstream

These days, what can’t you crowdsource? It all started with sites like Kickstarter and IndieAGoGo, which allowed folks to fund projects (not businesses, mind you) by asking the entire internet for assistance. Now, you can crowdsource non-profits, start-ups, college tuition – even design options for your company’s website or logo (99Designs is an absolute sensation.)

Can you crowdsource marketing ideas? Heck yes you can. Leaders in the field are using social media platforms to crowdsource all manner of marketing strategies, getting real-world feedback about ideas without spending thousands of wasted dollars on directions that your audience won’t respond to. Companies like Zappos have had tremendous success with this process – there’s no reason why you can’t do the same.

Locals Have Their Heyday

Entrepreneurs that run local businesses suddenly have an influx of tools specifically geared toward local Best Online Marketing. SEO experts often focus solely on local results, leveraging geo-targeted tools and techniques to reach communities outside your door. Marketers have become wise to the fact that even local businesses can adeptly use online strategies to find new customers, and just as important, keep existing ones engaged.

Put the Multi in Multi-Screen Marketing

75 percent of the world now has access to cell phones, and if you’re not attempting to reach them, you are definitely losing out on a massive market share. Utilizing either responsive design or taking a multi-screen development approach is no longer an option to consider, it’s often a first priority for new startups. All signs point to this trend continuing, too, meaning mobile is really king of the screens, and the once mighty PC has taken a backseat. Keep this in mind as you launch or redesign your online site – make sure it rocks on a small screen too.

The Rise of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a relatively new expression, and in many ways, the biggest contribution 2013 has offered up to the world of marketing. This focus involves content creation, conversation-starters, and resources that lure in customers through valuable information shares, rather than hard-selling tactics. More and more companies are launching blogs that showcase information about their industry, often with little to no mention of their business at all. While that may sound counter-intuitive, it’s SEO gold, and just as precious to users that want value before traditional marketing messages. If you hook a potential customer by providing something meaningful, you’ve already helped to establish loyalty. The great thing is, stellar content also woos search engines too, so this is a double bounty.

Whatever tactics you employ, remember that today’s online user is savvier and more discerning than ever before. Honesty trumps slickness, transparency trumps trickery. The more human you allow your campaigns to be, the more engaging and appealing your brand will feel.

What new marketing tactics are you noticing or employing this year? How have your overall results looked?

resource:http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/09/27/2013-innovative-marketing-trends-date/

The Best SEO Tactics for Bing

It’s no secret anymore that Google has some serious competition. Sure, no one says “Bing it” the way they say “Google it”, but popular slang isn’t the only measurement of search engine success.

In the handful of years Bing has been in the mix, they’ve only gone one direction: up. With the power of Microsoft behind the technology and marketing prowess, that’s not likely to let up any time soon.

Are all search engines created equal? Not a chance. As it’s shaping up, Google and Bing both have definite strengths and weaknesses. That’s good news for merchants who want to differentiate themselves, but it does add SEO complexity, as tactics are definitely not “one-size-fits-all.”

Bing and Google: Similarities and Differences

Bing and Google certainly have more in common than not, but the differences are what make them interesting. Likewise, it’s these standout traits that business owners need to take note of, because they help determine which search engine should be at the forefront of all SEO strategies. While it’s never advisable to leave either one out of your efforts, it’s important to choose which site the bulk of your time and dollars should be focused on. For the first time ever this year, that may very well be Bing.

Google has one thorough, dynamic, and tricky as can be algorithm. They excel at squashing spammers (they’re not perfect, but they do an amazing job of sweeping out the cheaters), keeping content results clean and consistent, and showcasing a simple, intuitive user-interface.

Bing, on the other hand, has become the social darling, as it is the only search engine that has successfully integrated Facebook into its rankings. This is pretty revolutionary because your Facebook friends’ likes and dislikes are integrated into the search results. Google does the same with Google+, but let’s face it, there’s little contest regarding which is more powerful.

What this has come to mean is that for local search results, Bing reigns supreme. For informational searches and web-wide research, Google is the go-to.

Are You a Google or a Bing Business?

For merchants, this is actually an easy decision. If you run a locally owned business, Bing’s results are increasingly superior.

Don’t believe me? Take a cue from the brilliant Bing-it-On Challenge marketing campaign and see for yourself.

Search for something like “Las Vegas hotels”. See if you don’t agree with the masses that Bing’s results are not only more graphically-rich, but also more targeted. Then, search for something like “Define: nebula” – and Google will likely kick Bing’s behind.

Who’s Winning the Popularity Contest?

There’s no denying Google still has the majority of the market share, but those numbers continue to slip. Furthermore, a lot of folks are running surveys to see which search engine users actually prefer, and many are giving top marks to Bing.

In a survey earlier this year, Search Engine Watch asked a gaggle of searchers which experience they preferred, specifically regarding the layouts of each site.

The results were split into several interesting categories, but the gist of the data was this: 63 percent of users preferred Bing’s layout as it related to social search and 53 percent preferred Google for universal search. More proof that if you’re a local business, it’s time to seriously consider putting your bang in Bing.

Top Tips for Excelling on Bing

If you want to hit the top of Bing’s rankings for your chosen keywords, here are the best ways to score a high ranking:

• First and foremost, make sure that social tactics are a huge part of your marketing strategies. A heavy presence on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and related sites is a must.
• Be a heavy Facebook user, as opposed to Google+. Leverage your fans, and encourage social signals (Likes, comments, etc.)
• Test your keywords specifically against the Bing audience. What will get you high rankings in Google will likely be different in Bing. The smaller audience also means less competition for your keywords, so you’re more likely to do well using more popular selections on Bing than on Google.
• Bing is a stickler for error free XML sitemaps. Make sure yours have zero 404s, or the Bingbot might ignore the whole thing.
• The Bingbot is also big on Robots.txt files. If your site doesn’t have one, it risks being completely ignored by Bing.
• Bounce rates are also big deciding factors. If most visitors bounce off a page before spending a certain chunk of time, the entire website may suffer a ranking decrease.
• Just like Google, content – good, quality, fresh, current, irresistible content – is essential to a high ranking.

Whether you decide to go full throttle into a Bing approach, or stick to the tried-and-true Google, make sure you at least keep some strategies in mind for both. Bing may not yet be the homecoming queen, but it’s earned enough votes to make the reigning royalty start quaking in the knees. That means you’re very wise to not ignore this new kid on the search block. Get Best Internet Marketing Services.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/08/19/the-best-seo-tactics-for-bing/

A Step-By-Step Website SEO Audit Guide

At some point SEOs need to audit a site to find out what is going wrong and what needs to be fixed. There might be a number of things preventing a website from reaching its full potential but finding those problems can be difficult. The outline below will help educate you and show you what you should be looking at and how to fix it.

If you are performing SEO on behalf of clients, especially new clients, you need to have their sites thoroughly examined for technical issues. Whether a site has crawling issues, indexing problems, or other issues that are inhibiting the site’s ability to rank, this process will find it.

It should be used when new clients sign on but could also be used as a sales tool. Free site audits can be compelling for showing your leads what is wrong with their sites, and shows them the route you would take to deal with those issues.

Most websites that you come across are going to have something wrong with them. Having a process in place to efficiently identify these issues is essential to maintaining site health and rankings.

Let’s get started.

Screaming Frog Spider

Your first task is to use a tool called Screaming Frog. It is a free application that can be used to crawl sites. When the client’s site has been crawled, you can export the data to excel and analyze it. The tool looks at every page of the site and reports back on the following:

• Duplicate Pages – Identifies any pages where the content is the same or similar to another page on the web.
• Errors – Reports any client or server issues, such as 404 pages.
• External Links – Shows all of the sites that you link out to.
• Title Tags – Shows any missing, duplicate, short or long titles.
• Description Tags- Shows any missing, duplicate, short or long descriptions.
• URL Issues – Shows URLs with upper cases, dynamic URLs, URLs that are too long or have underscores.
• Redirects – Shows any permanent or temporary redirects.
• Headings – Shows information on any h1, h2 or h3 tags used on the site.
• Meta Robots – Lets you know what you are allowing to be indexed, and what you aren’t.
• Anchor Text – Identifies the anchor text you are using for any images or web pages.
• Internal Links – Shows where you are linking to other pages on the same domain.
• Follow & Nofollow – Shows you which links are follow links and which are nofollow. This can be useful to quickly find links that need the nofollow tag added to them, which will minimize link juice being passed to other sites.
• Bot Crawling – Crawls the site as the Google, Bing or Yahoo bot, allowing you to see what the search engines see.
• Images – Gives you information on the site images, the alt tags used, and where alt tags are missing.
• Page Depth Level – Finds how many levels deep the search engines have to crawl to find all your content.
• File Size – With smaller file sizes, your website will load faster. Identifies spots where you need to make files smaller.

When the site has been crawled, which will take a few minutes; you can export the data and refer back to it as needed.

Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics

Make sure the site is registered on Webmaster tools and in Google analytics, and that you can access them both.

Through Webmaster tools, you can see any crawl issues that Google is encountering, the general health of the site, and loads more. It is the easiest way to discover any problems with your site.

Webmaster tools needs to be checked once a month for all clients at a bare minimum, to ensure that any problems that crop up are dealt with quickly.

Keyword Analysis

The information on title tags and description tags that you acquired from the Screaming Frog tool can be used to understand what the site is currently trying to rank for.

You can then combine that information with Google analytics to see if the site is actually getting traffic for the keywords you are targeting. You can then decide where keywords need to be changed and target keywords that will bring more quality, relevant traffic to the site.

URLs

The Screaming Frog report will also give you information on the URLs that are used across the site. Ideally, the URLs need to obey the following rules:

• Must be static – Static URLs contain only numbers, letters and dashes. For some reason, search engines struggle to understand URLs if they contain anything other than this.
• Easy to remember – Make sure all URLs are user-friendly. Simpler URLs are ideal.
• Under 100 characters – As a rule of thumb, make sure URLs aren’t longer than 100 characters.

If any of the URLs fail to meet these criteria, you may want to consider changing them. If you do, make sure you redirect the old URL to the new one to maintain any of the link juice flowing to that URL.

Title Tags

The data from the Screaming Frog tool will give you information on all of the title tags used across the site. Title tags are probably the single most important place to insert your target keywords. Make sure all of the title tags follow these guidelines:

• Must be 50-70 characters in length.
• Must be unique.
• If possible, and if it makes sense, use the target keyword for that page twice.
• Use the name of the city for the business if it makes sense to do so.

Description Tags

Descriptions don’t actually help with rankings, but they do substantially alter your click-through rates. Description tags need to be compelling, and give good reason for searchers to want to click through and visit the site. Follow these guidelines:

• Make sure that every description is unique and relevant to that page.
• Include a call to action.
• No more than 160 characters in length, no less than 51. But ideally, the longer they are the better.
• Use the target keyword for that page where appropriate. It will appear bolded in the search results which will draw searchers’ eyes to your listing and improve click-through rate as a result.
• Use the name of the city for the business, if appropriate.

Headings

H1, H2 and H3 tags need to contain the target keywords for that page because they help a lot with ranking. Follow these guidelines:

• Search engines generally feel that keywords that are bigger in size are more important and give them more authority as a result. Therefore, it is important to make the headings big, prominent and ideally the first thing that people see on the page.
• They should only contain text – no images or logos.
• Use a H1 tag at the top of the page and break up paragraphs of text with h2 or h3 tags. They work well from a usability standpoint and help with rankings.

Content

You need to make sure there is enough content across the pages on the site. You can’t use any of the tools to help you with this, but it should be easy enough to just scan the site and identify where more content needs to be added.

Each page should have a minimum of 300 words of content. If any of the pages don’t, add some more. But don’t add content for the sake of adding it; only add useful, engaging content.

It is more important to fulfill the needs of your actual visitors rather than that of the search engines. Large chunks of spammy, unnecessary content will just ruin the credibility of the entire site.

Make sure content is split up into bite size chunks as testing has shown that visitors skip over content if it is laid out in one massive paragraph.

Internal Linking

If you link to inner pages of the site where appropriate, search engines find it much easier to crawl the entire site. You can refer to both the Screaming Frog data and Webmaster tools for information on internal linking.

Where you can, ensure you don’t have more than 100 links on any one page, and around 2 or 3 internal links.

Using anchor text that is too rich with your target keywords can actually have a negative effect on rankings so only use target keywords around 10%-30% of the time when linking internally. Use click here’s or similar text links instead.

Image Text

Every image must have an alt tag. This is for the benefit of the search engines and visually impaired users. The alt tag needs to describe the image and contain a keyword if that keyword is relevant to the image. Alt tags do have a slight impact on rankings so try and get the keyword in where possible.

Nofollow

If one page links to another, and Google sees the linked to page as relevant, some of the link juice is passed through. When the nofollow tag is used, Google will then pass 50%-100% less link juice through.

Use the nofollow tag on sitewide external links, blog comments, and anywhere else where you don’t want to lose link juice.

Excluding Pages

Search engines don’t like it when you have loads of pages with barely any content on them. Where you can’t add more content, you may wish to stop that page from being indexed altogether.

Simply addto any pages that you don’t want to be indexed.

Sitemap

Sitemaps make it easier for search engines to index all of the pages on a site. Go here to get a sitemap created, and then submit it to Webmaster tools. It will tell you how many submitted URLs are actually getting indexed.

Make sure you check Webmaster Tools regularly to ensure the sitemap is still working as it should.

Redirects

There are two types of redirects: a 301 redirect (permanent), and a 302 redirect (temporary). 302 redirects are a dead end for SEO, and don’t pass any link juice.

Unless the reason for a redirect is truly a temporary solution, such as a timed promotion, a 301 redirect should be used.

Take a look through the data from the Screaming Frog tool and make sure deleted pages or URLs that have changed are using a 301 redirect.

Duplicate Content

The search engines really don’t like duplicate content. Following the Panda update to Google’s algorithm, sites with duplicate content have been identified and penalized.

There are 3 main ways to deal with duplicate content:

• Rewrite the content to make it unique.
• Use URL redirects.
• Use a rel canonical tag to specify the original page to the search engines. You can use this tag within the head section of the page to show the canonical web page:

Broken Links

If a spider comes across a broken link when crawling a site, it will stop crawling and immediately leave the site. If there are too many broken links on a site, it will be seen as providing a bad user experience, and rankings will suffer as a result.

You should use Webmaster Tools to check for broken links and you can also use the Xenu link sleuth tool. When you find broken links, use a 301 redirect.

Page Load Speed

Google recommends that sites load in 1.4 seconds or less. Any longer and rankings are not going to be as good as they could be.

Use Pingdom’s speed tool to test the speed of the site and then use the pagespeed tool from Google, to identify solutions. If the load time is longer than 1.4 seconds, there are a number of actions you can take.

• Browser caching
• CSS sprites for images
• Reduce image file size
• Combine CSS or javascript into fewer files
• Install the W3 total cache plugin, if the site is using WordPress.

Incoming Links

Use Open Site Explorer to analyze inbound links. You will get a good idea of the type of link building activity that has been performed on the site in the past.

Thoroughly look through the link profiles and search for spammy or low quality links. It may be that certain links are having a negative effect on the site’s ability to rank, and you may need to use the disavow tool to discount certain links.

Domain Authority

Use SEO moz’s domain authority rank, which can be found in Open Site Explorer, to judge the overall authority of the site.

It ranks the site from 0-100, and is currently the best way of working out how much authority the site has, which is going to seriously effect its ability to rank.

Compare the domain authority to that of competitors. If the site’s authority doesn’t stack up well against theirs, you’ll want to avoid targeting the same keywords as them.

As a rule of thumb, if the domain authority is lower than 30, you’ll want to adjust the competitiveness of the keywords that you target.

Once you build a site’s domain authority to a decent level, ideally above 40, you can begin to target more competitive keywords.

Find Social Media Mentions

Social signals definitely have an impact on rankings, and it is
important to assess the number of mentions the site has. Again,
you can find this data within Open Site Explorer.

There are two simple ways to modify a site to increase the chances of acquiring social signals.

• Integrate sharing buttons clearly across the site and on any blog posts.
• Create content that is worthy of sharing, and reach out to people to ask for feedback.

That’s it. Hopefully you learned a few things about auditing a site. Don’t forget to bookmark so that you can come back as and when you need to. If you have any comments, concerns, or queries, leave them below and I’ll get back to you.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/08/14/a-step-by-step-website-seo-audit-guide/