Matt Cutts, Google’s destroyer of webspam recently answered the question: “Does Google take action on spammy guest blogging activities” in the below video.

In it, he explains that when you use article spinning as a means of placing content on other websites, or if you are a website that allows spun content, then yes, there are clear indicators that either the links won’t provide much value, or you could actually hurt your sites’ reputation.

Leave it up to spammers to tarnish a perfectly good link building method. In reality, there’s nothing wrong with select directory submissions, bookmark links, reciprocal linking, comment linking and especially guest blogging. It’s how you’re using the tools that matters. It’s kind of like the saying “guns kill people”, which is incorrect. It’s just a tool that’s being used improperly.

A fresh reminder of what guest blogging truly is will help clear any confusion. Guest blogging is a relationship building tool that involves providing unique content to a webmaster for the purpose of being read, shared and interacted with. Like all good pieces of content, credit is given where credit is due, and this can come in the form of publicity, advertising, a potential partnership and/or backlink.

Spinning articles or approaching sites that are borderline article networks is not guest blogging and you should never confuse the two. It’s glorified article submitting that just takes more time. Be careful, even some online services can take this route, that’s why doing your research on a legitimate guest posting service is so important. For some SEO’s it might still work, but you’re making enemies, ruining your reputation and you’re one more algorithm update away from needing to return the leased BMW in your garage.

Lazy SEO is dead and Google rightfully killed it. Even though their algorithm and relevancy factor didn’t exactly improve, it’s a step in the right direction and it separated the good SEO’s from the bad. To get the most out of your guest blogging while still keeping your methods legitimate, try and follow a few simple rules:

Is This Blog Legitimate?

There are several things you can look for to gauge the legitimacy of a blog. Are they an actual company? Do they have contact information? Are the published posts unique content? Do they have pictures? Do the posts appear to be quality, or are they just a glorified blog network? If you answered ‘no’ to any of these, it could be an indicator that it’s not a quality website.

What Is The Authority Of The Website?

Domain authority or MozTrust is a fantastic indicator of quality. SEOMoz has done a fantastic job of looking at certain metrics to determine what is spam and what is not. It’s not the end all, be all, but it’s fantastic for quick glances.

Where Did I Find This Blog?

There are so many excellent tools out there to find legitimate guest bloggers or publishers. If you found your opportunity on one of the below sites, (still do your research) but it’s a good chance you’re in the clear:

• BloggersMeet.org
• MyBlogGuest.com
• BloggerLinkUp.com

If you signed up for a service and you’re picking a website out of their selection, it’s a good chance they own all those websites and you’re just in an article network. Research is key!

Why Am I Offering My Content?

If your answer is “to get the backlink”, you better be offering some solid content or are being very picky about a website. If you’re just out to chase a link, there are still article networks out there with decent PR that would love to have you. If you’re offering content for the credit, publicity, to network and potentially grow a partnership with the blogger, then you are guest blogging for the right reasons.

Not all websites are going to have the above mentioned qualities. For example, if you come across a website with a Domain Authority of 9, don’t count it out just yet. New websites aren’t a bad thing, they’re just new, or they haven’t been updated by SEOmoz. Before counting a “low authority” website out, make sure they have other redeeming qualities like fresh content, a great design, readership and social engagement.

To summarize, it is extremely surprising that Cutts has to come out in a video and answer this question. Did we learn nothing from Penguin? Did the endless articles about why content spinning is bad not get through to spammers? I’m not sure where the disconnect is, but I would like to hear your thoughts!

Why do you think some SEO’s continue to spam? Is it because:

1. Illegitimate SEO agencies can’t or won’t invest resources into quality fulfillment work?
2. SEO’s just continue the “lazy SEO” method hoping it will still work?
3. Google still has a lot of work to do, and to a point, these spammy methods still DO work?
4. All of the above.

Comment below with either A, B, C, D or your own idea of why spammers are giving guest blogging and other link/brand building techniques a bad name.

Spammy Guest Blogging: A Continuation on Matt Cutts’ Latest Video is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

If you’re wondering why this title sounds familiar, it’s because this blog post is meant to supplement Rand Fishkin’s recent Whiteboard Friday about 6 basic changes every SEO should make before Google’s new algorithm is rolled out. As always, Google is very vague about what changes they’re going to make which leaves us with many unknowns and what ifs.

What we do know is that the “over-optimization penalty” could be caused by manipulative on-site optimization techniques that bait the search engines, instead of serving the site user. Rand does a great job of outlining six main onsite elements you’re going to want to revise in the near future, which include: keyword stuffed title tags, spammy or manipulative internal linking, link filled footers with exact match anchor text keywords, keyword-filled content blocks, backlinks from penalty-likely sources (i.e. link networks, reciprocal linking, etc) and individual pages with content/keywords that only slightly vary. Rand covered the onsite, now let’s cover the offsite.

Six Red Flags to Look for in your Link Portfolio

To review these six flags, you’re going to want to look at your OpenSiteExplorer.org link data. Once your data has loaded, review the following steps, as they are the most used, manipulated and abused.

1. Exact-Match Anchor Text:
   Link building with exact match anchor text worked in the past, and it will certainly work in the future but to what extent is unknown. This element of link building certainly isn’t exempt from the term “everything in moderation”, but “moderation” is about to be redefined by Google. The ratio from exact match terms, to branded terms, to phrase match terms, to URL terms will probably be changing, so an auditing of your most used anchor text is needed.

   Take for example the image below of a certain review website’s most used anchor text on their homepage. Of the 335 links to this page, only 8 different anchor texts are being used. Even more extreme than that, 1 keyword takes up 66% of all anchor texts in all links. Every page is going to have several terms that are used more than most, but I wouldn’t want an individual keyword taking up more than 10-15% of all links. Having 5-7 keywords take up 60% of all links and the rest of the 40% completely unique variations would be (in my opinion) a solid strategy.

   

2. Linking from Questionable Sources:
   Look through your links and identify any links pages, foreign pages or adult websites. If you’ve hired a rogue SEO company instead of a reputable one, I wouldn’t be surprised to see links like this. If you do have an excessive amount of links like the ones mentioned, you may want to contact those webmasters to get them removed. Outweighing them with quality links (as we will discuss) will probably be the best plan.
3. Mass Article Networks/Directories:
   In the export of your OSE link data, filter the website title or URL column with a text filter of “article” or “directories”. By doing this, it will quickly give you a good idea of how many links you have that are most likely coming from article networks or general directories. Compare these links to the overall link count. Are half of your links from spammy sources? Two-thirds? Nearly all? This is going to be a major ranking factor as Google has already become aggressive enough to completely deindex BuildMyRank.com’s network and many others. Hopefully these two link building techniques haven’t been your priority.
   
4. Distribution of Links Across Pages:
   The key to link building is to keep everything natural. If there is anything that just doesn’t look organic from the search engines perspective, you’re doing it wrong. If you have a product website, make sure you’ve established the focus products, but don’t ignore others. The homepage is naturally going to have the most links, so if a category page two levels deep has 4x more links than any other page, something could look fishy. To look up your distribution of links, go to the “Top Pages” tab in OSE.
5. Consistent Domain/Page Authority of Backlinks:
   For the second time, everything in moderation! A normal looking backlink profile has high, medium and low quality links, so if you’re only building links on one end of the spectrum, this could trip a red flag with Google since it’s uncommon. View the “Inbound Links” tab to see the domain and page authority of these pages that are linking to your pages.
6. Frequency of Link Building:
   This audit requires the use of Majestic SEO’s backlink history checker, not OSE. The reason why the frequency of link building can be concerning is because if you build links in spurts, it can look unnatural. Websites that obtain ~50,000 links every month get them every day, not the first week of the month in a huge push. Again, make this look natural and perform continual link building. If you have the budget to drastically increase your SEO efforts, ease into it; don’t build hundreds of links overnight.

Link Building Methods That Caused This

As with everything in SEO, you need to adapt or die. If all you’re looking for is the quick win with the least amount of effort possible, you’re constantly going to be chasing rankings with elementary, spammy link build methods. Here are five link building techniques that need to be used as little as possible, if at all.

1. Article Spinning:
   {Pumping|Putting} {out|available} {50+|fifty+|50 plus} {articles|content articles} {from one|from just one} {original| authentic} {article|post } {doesn’t|does not} {mean|imply } {you’re|you are} {giving|offering} {unique content|original unique content} {towards the|for the} {search engines|search engine listings}.

   If you don’t understand what’s above, give yourself a pat on the back. If you do, delete your spinning software and keep reading.

2. Article Networks:
   This link building method may fix itself over time as Google deletes more article networks from their index, since they are obviously in violation of Google’s terms and conditions. Article networks aren’t the answer people, keep moving.
3. Links Pages:
   If you have a page in your navigation that says “Links”, get rid of it! And if you are searching Google for [INDUSTRY] “Links”, stop it and erase your history just for good measure.
4. Reciprocal Linking:
   This goes hand in hand with the links pages, but this method is just too easy to track and it’s time in the spotlight was up five years ago. This includes 3-way, 4-way and whatever other way you enjoy linking.
5. Link Purchasing:
   Sadly this technique isn’t going to go away since it works, but it’s just not worth the risk. Your money to buy these links is better spent on employees to work on the good stuff mentioned below. Yea, I’m talking to you JCPenney, we haven’t forgotten.

Link Building that Actually Helps your Link Portfolio

If what you found in the above link building audit is concerning, or if you’ve received a warning via Webmaster Tools, it’s time to start building links via quality content that people and robots alike will enjoy. Here are five of my favorites.

1. Guest Blog Posting:
   Whether you are requesting content or wanting to give yours away for a link, guest blog posting is a white-hat link strategy that serves more purposes than to boost your rankings, it’s actually good engaging content! MyBlogGuest.com, GuestBlogPoster.com and BloggerLinkUp.com are three excellent places to start building your brand, name and links.
2. Infographics/Viral Pieces:
   If you haven’t gotten on the infographic bandwagon, it’s finally time. Putting some thought, creativity and work into a quality infographic can land you on industry websites relatively easy. At the very least, it’s an easy way to get on graphic websites like InfographicHub.com and VisialLoop and typically, those types of websites will even spread your content on social sites.
3. Building Tools:
   This link building method is the hardest, but it can have incredible returns on links. By building a tool that people can embed on their websites, you save them time and give their users an answer to their problems. The easiest example that comes to mind is having a mortgage calculator that real estate agents can then embed on their personal sites. Brilliant, right?
4. Press Releases:
   This is one link building strategy that has been used and even abused for a long time, but it seems to be pretty easy for the search engines to sort through the nonsense. There are several press release distribution websites, just give it a quick search. Also, make sure what you are publishing in a press release is actually news worthy, not a minor change at your company or something completely made up.
5. Social Media:
   Who knew that talking to people and building relationships could turn into a link? To combine this method with guest blog posting, I’d check out Ethan Lyon’s post on how to use Twitter to obtain guest posts. I’ve personally used it and have loved it! Get involved with those that are within your industry and start being a resource of knowledge. Also, check out this Whiteboard Friday on the topic for more ideas.

Hopefully the OSE audit, the link building that needs to go and the link building that needs to stay has helped you identify what you need to change before Google lays down their rank-destroying hammer. Remember people, everything in moderation and let’s start using some of these white-hat link building methods.

I know there are other link building methods out there that work, and that the search engines will actually like. Don’t just close this tab in your browser, comment below and tweet @seocom while using the hashtag #WhiteHatTips and share your favorite white-hat link building method and I’ll credit your advice in this blog post.

Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

If you don’t have a solid link building strategy guiding your SEO campaign, you might fall short of your goals because of mediocre results. There is no “one size fits all” link building campaign, despite what you may find with other illegitimate ‘SEO firms’. A true link building strategy needs to be custom to provide optimal results, which includes researching your competitors, understanding the status quo of your site and establishing the strengths and weaknesses of your backlink portfolio.

Situation #1: Extremely authoritative site, 5+ year old domain and no prior SEO campaigns.

• Symptoms: Websites that fall under this category have significant age– at least 5+ years. You must be an authority within your industry both online and offline and have had no prior SEO campaigns. Websites in this situation are interested in getting on the SEO bandwagon, but haven’t because of a focus on other marketing channels.
• Diagnosis: So, how do you improve your rankings based on this situation? First things first, if your website is highly authoritative, start with a complete site optimization by adding your keywords in the appropriate sections. Chances are, once this is completed and is indexed, your keyword rankings will have an initial spike.Then, run a report in OpenSiteExplorer.org and “Show ALL links from ONLY EXTERNAL pages to THIS PAGE.” Click the “Anchor Text” tab. All websites naturally accumulate links from random websites across the internet. This will show you what the most used anchor text will be. Likely, it’s going to be branded terms.The type of link building that you engage in to boost those rankings is very important. Right now your website’s link portfolio doesn’t have the right balance of quality and quantity. If you haven’t done link building before, chances are you already have many quality links, but they’re missing critical elements needed to translate into better keyword rankings.

• Treatment: Your website needs more links using keyword specific anchor text. This doesn’t need to be exact match anchor text, but the search engines are currently only seeing your brand name. While it’s not the highest quality link building, simple directory submissions or quick article distribution websites using your keywords in the anchor text will go a long way. Don’t go overboard. Remember, everything in moderation.

Situation #2: 2-5 year old aged site, little authority and highly optimized onsite and offsite.

• Symptoms: You’ve been playing the SEO game for the past few years, with both link building and onsite optimization. Maybe you’ve gone through a couple of outsourced SEO firms that did mediocre work, or you’ve attempted link building before, but with no real direction.
• Diagnosis: The fact that your site has little authority shows that the link building that’s been done was subpar. Likely only directory submissions, bookmark links and shadier-than-normal article directories. If your website is in this position, it’s likely that the SEO wasn’t really taken seriously, and the “get rich quick” mindset was all too involved.
• Treatment: It’s apparent that the SEO thus far has been substandard. I would recommend reviewing the onsite optimization for the pages you are trying to rank. How relevant are these pages for their keywords vs. other pages? Do you have internal linking going on throughout your blog/article section and on other key pages? Once that’s corrected, link building should consist of mainly press releases, viral pieces (e.g. infographics, widgets, tools), guest blog posting and very selective industry forums/directories. Unless the anchor text you’ve used in the past was only branded, I would recommend staying away from exact match anchor text since that’s what is commonly used with poor, bulk link building.  Use branded anchor text or a mix between branded and keyword specific text.

Situation #3: Brand new website, no links and no optimization of any kind.

• Symptoms: Your website is less than 3 months old, you don’t have any backlinks and you haven’t started optimizing your website for your keywords. Essentially, this is starting from scratch.
• Diagnosis: Link building strategies for new websites are actually fairly simple. OpenSiteExplorer.org is going to be your best friend for this because you need to look at your competitors to see what they’re doing. What is their ratio of non-branded terms to branded? How many links do they have? How many of their links are using exact match anchor texts? Emulate these good practices in your new link portfolio.The term “everything in moderation” is truer in this situation than in any other. You have no authority or history with the search engines, which essentially means they don’t trust you.

• Treatment: Your website needs authority, and the best way to do this is through guest blog posting. Focusing on this link building method will also prevent you from getting an over optimization penalty, which results from too many links containing too similar of anchor text. We need to make sure these links look natural to the search engines. It’s best to widely vary the anchor text you’re using, and including branded terms in anchor text is also highly recommended. Don’t count out industry or local specific directories (these are still very valuable) but I wouldn’t recommend going out and blasting 300 directory submissions every week. Article distribution services should be used sparingly, and press releases will be very valuable because of the authoritative websites you’ll be getting the links from. The key to this situation is to not overdo it, because you could potentially be hit with a penalty. One last note– don’t be surprised if you cannot rank for highly competitive terms in the first 9 months. The conspiracy theorist in me is a believer in Google’s “sandbox theory”, which doesn’t allow your website to reach its potential in the search results for X amount of time for highly competitive search terms.

Situation #4: Extremely authoritative site, 7+ year old domain and highly optimized.

• Symptoms: Sites in this situation include major industry leaders for massive keywords like “hotels”, “SEO” or “computers”. The work your team has done is probably plateauing, because traditional link building methods don’t move the needle like they used to.
• Diagnosis: Smaller, newer websites don’t really have a chance of ranking for these keywords unless they are backed by years of SEO work and a strong presence, both online and offline. Because the keywords for this situation are so competitive, that is the problem you are running into.
• Treatment: If you want to rank for million dollar keywords, you need to think outside the box. Directory submissions, bookmarking links, article distribution sites aren’t really going to serve the purpose that they do with smaller websites. Where you’re going to find the value, at the very minimum, is guest blog posting. Key factors that play into the success many large companies have with their SEO include running contests, promoting infographics, distributing press releases and having a major social presence and following.

Situation #5: 18-month old website, little authority and possible Google penalty.

• Symptoms: You had success at some point over the last 18 months, but something happened. Either Google updated their algorithm, or they finally caught on to your spammy link building tactics. Your keyword rankings were rising, but now that they have been hit, you don’t have anything on the first page of Google anymore.
• Diagnosis: I’m going to guess that the majority of the link building you were doing consisted of low level tactics like directory submissions, bookmark linking and bulk article distribution sites. While those have their place in some search engine optimization campaigns, you were putting all your eggs in one basket. On top of that, the anchor text you were using was rarely varied. These are all classic symptoms of an over-optimization penalty from Google.
• Treatment: Stop what you’re doing! Google doesn’t it like it, and now they don’t like you either. You need to start guest blog posting, submitting press releases, building tools and providing quality content to your readers. By doing this, you will become a real resource within your industry, and one that Google can trust. It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to send Google a reconsideration request through Webmaster Tools just to cover all of your bases. Get involved in social media and start promoting your content there. With all the buzz around the new social signals that the search engines will be using, you don’t want to be left behind and play catch up again.Do not expect a quick turnaround. You could be working at repairing your rankings for 4-6 months before anything starts to come back. Spammy tactics don’t pay off. It’s kind of like the phrase “don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time”.

I’m 100% certain that there is more to add to this list. As this is a great starting point for many site owners, I encourage all of you to add your advice to whichever situation you’re familiar with. I’ve had client experiences that touch on every situation above, but I want to hear from you!

Situation-Specific Link Building Strategies for a Solid SEO Campaign is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Link building is a critical part of most SEO campaigns. If you have a solid strategy to obtain legitimate links from relevant websites, you’re adding value to the web and typically, raising your rankings within the search engines in the process. On the other hand, if you’re link building to sketchy websites for the sheer purpose of manipulating the search engines without providing any value, it’s easy for the search engines to see your shady tactics and adjust your rankings accordingly.

However, what happens when you’re a legitimate business that unknowingly hires a spammy SEO company? Or, what if your competitors decide to sabotage your rankings by throwing some money and/or resources at a smear campaign, filled with massive amounts of unnatural links? Does a business owner’s website deserve the“Google slap” when they had no intention of violating Google’s policies?

Personally, I have received an over-optimization penalty from the search engines because of my own stupidity. It was one of those “life lessons” that I deserved because I knew better, but applying the same consequences to all webmasters is borderline unfair.

For example, I currently have a client who has had prior SEO campaigns from illegitimate, overseas companies that did more harm than good. Those companies got him 340,000 external links over the span of 18 months in the footer and sidebar of 90 different domains using their main keywords. They also had keywords with Chinese and other Asian characters. Oh, I almost forgot, there were porn sites in there too. Did this trusting website owner deserve a penalty from Google because his SEO company is engaging in wrongful strategies?

If you had an established company and you saw a competitor quickly coming up in the SERPs, how far would you go to stop them? After all, you want to stay at the top and dominate your niche. If you were experienced enough to understand that building an unnatural link profile to a website could result in penalties, would you? I wouldn’t, but that’s because I’m an honest person. I’m willing to bet, however, that most people would try and destroy their competitor’s rankings given the chance.

Google: Help us, Help you

This isn’t the first time somebody has suggested Google allow us to disassociate our websites with another linking website. Dr. Pete from SEOmoz already gave his modest proposal in an excellent blog post on 6 ways to recover from bad links. I’m sure others have covered it as well.

There are a few ways Google could allow us to help them combat webspam. One excellent way is to create a robots-only file on your website similar to a robots.txt, where you can specify what websites you want to disallow.

If that method doesn’t work, it could always be built into Google Webmaster Tools. This concept isn’t complex and I can’t imagine it being difficult for the search engines to execute, but it definitely would protect business owners from shady SEO firms and prevent unethical competitors from sabotaging your website.

Dr. Pete already did an excellent job with his suggestion, but if this blog post has any purpose, it’s to raise awareness of this problem. Being able to disassociate incoming links at the very least, would raise the standards and practices of SEO companies and prevent oblivious business owners from getting screwed.

To me, it would make sense for Google to allow webmasters to do this. At the very minimum, it would allow inexperienced site owners to quickly recover their losses after being duped by an illegitimate SEO firm. It would also protect new websites from being sabotaged by big competitors. However, what reasons do you think Google has for not doing this?

We Can Disallow Pages, Why Can’t We Disallow Links? is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

SEO is the fastest growing marketing channel because of the incredible return on investment that can be obtained in a relatively short amount of time.

With the right strategy and implementation, website optimization can dramatically improve sales, branding and market share. In the last decade, the Internet has become a main resource for shoppers and searchers and it’s only growing. Obtaining great rankings for products or services should be a priority for your marketing team to take advantage of potential sales.

Because of the complicated nature of search engine optimization, there are many companies out there that offer a subpar product that only puts money into their pockets. I have heard too many SEO horror stories about companies paying up to $700 per month on an SEO campaign, only to find that it never pans out. An SEO campaign should pay for itself.

All SEO companies are different. They have their own processes, methods and strategies to make sure they achieve the results you’re looking for. There are SEO companies out there that take on clients knowing they cannot fulfill what they’ve promised. Why? Because they’re greedy and there are hoards of companies looking for great deals for their online marketing.

The same is true with other services. Whether you’re hiring a landscaper, painter or mechanic, if you hire somebody at a discounted rate, you’re going to get discounted service. Timelines will stretch, communication will be lazy and results WILL suffer.

Make Sure You’re Comparing Apples to Apples When Hiring an SEO Firm

Often, I have given a quote to a potential client only to hear that “Joe Blow SEO” down the street will do it for half the cost. Is it because my rates are too high? No. It’s because the level of service and results are truly worth the money!

When you hire a legitimate SEO company, you’re not just paying for results, you’re paying for:

• Intelligent, experienced employees
• Weekly or Bi-weekly communication
• Proof of performance
• Analytics, lead, keyword position and other reports
• Professionalism
• Accountability
• Education on SEO or online marketing
• Transparency in work performed

When you hire an SEO company that touts results without proof, goal setting or ongoing communication, you will likely end up cancelling and demanding a refund.

Before you hire an SEO company, make sure you ask the following questions:

1. How long has your company been providing SEO services? (hopefully at least a year)

2. What case studies do you have for me to view? (if none, hang up the phone)

3. How many companies does your firm work with? (less than 40 or more than 1000 could be a red flag, unless it’s a private individual)

4. How many accounts does my SEO manager currently handle? (more than 40 could be a red flag because of time constraints)

5. What are some of your link building methods? (if they only mention a couple, ask for more)

6. Will your company buy links on other websites? (if so, hang up the phone)

7. How often will we receive status updates? (at least every two weeks)

8. What reporting do you provide to show value? (analytics and rankings are a must, custom reports should also be gathered based on the situation)

9. During the campaign, can I pick up the phone at any time and speak with my SEO manager? (if not, this could be a red flag)

10. Can you give me an example of some keywords I can expect with my budget? (make sure these keywords will drive relevant traffic; also ask for traffic numbers)

11. What types of goals or benchmarks should we set up for the campaign? (if there are no KPIs, or ‘key performance indicators’, this is a red flag)

12. Can I speak with the SEO manager that will be handling my account before I begin services? (one may not have been assigned yet, but you should still be able to speak with one if you want to, if they won’t allow it, this could be a red flag)

Let me clear up some common SEO misconceptions:

1. SEO companies do not have contacts at Google, Bing or Yahoo that can actually influence your rankings. There are Google contacts for some Adwords accounts, but they can’t influence organic ranking position.

2. The number of links is important, but do not focus entirely on quantity. Keep in mind that it is very rare for an SEO firm to guarantee a certain amount of links per month. This number will always vary.

3. An exact date or month for when results will appear cannot be determined. However, a general timeframe for when results are to be expected should be given.

When searching around for an SEO company, there are only going to be a handful of legitimate firms that are going to give you a great SEO experience. Unfortunately, there are also bucket loads of scam companies. Generally, the companies I’ve seen charging less than $800 for a full-blown SEO campaign don’t end up provide real value. There is a good reason larger SEO companies and proven individuals cost more: the service, expertise and return is always better. It’s just more proof that “you get what you pay for.”

With SEO, You Get What You Pay For! is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

So, your business has seen the value of search engine optimization and needs to get on the SEO bandwagon to increase your Internet sales. For those traditional marketing professionals that aren’t familiar with SEO, I’ve compiled five valid reasons why hiring an experienced, reputable SEO firm is generally better than building out your own in-house SEO team.

Instant Team with Real Knowledge

Quite simply, when you sign up with an SEO firm, you already have the manpower on hand. This saves you days of sorting through resumes, interviewing and the back and forth of hiring. Also, if you don’t fully understand SEO, how can you be so certain that the person you’re hiring is actually the best person for the job? A reputable SEO company has dozens of knowledgeable members to aid in setting strategy or resolving any issues.

Proven Experience, Expertise and Education

Signing on with a proven SEO company not only gets your campaign moving quickly, but they’re also there to answer questions, consult and weigh in on other online marketing techniques. A reputable SEO company typically has a track record including case studies and a decent sized SEO team.

In addition, depending on the company, they will invest thousands of dollars in keeping their employees’ knowledge up to date by allotting time to research, testing and attending SEO conferences around the nation.

Connections and Collaborative Efforts

Along the same lines of experience and expertise that an SEO firm has, your project should be seen by many professional’s eyes. As opposed to creating your own team, the decision and strategy that is behind your SEO campaign gets looked at by other managers, directors and VPs. Putting all your eggs in one basket and trusting a single individual to market your products online is risky. The truth is, without multiple experienced eyes on a campaign, bad decisions from inexperience or lack of knowledge can seriously hurt your SEO both short and long term.

Much Easier to Manage

Reputable SEO companies should always be available. You should be able to pick up a phone and call them during business hours. For many companies, SEO can be very confusing and many don’t want anything more than phone call meetings and accurate reports to show value. The truth is, leaving your SEO project in the trusted hands of proven professionals is easier to manage. It doesn’t take as much time out of your day and you still get all the value.

Performance Driven

SEO companies will do whatever it takes to keep you on as a client. This mentality encourages an increase of productivity and a higher level of performance. All SEO companies should be tracking the progress of the campaign through analytics, rankings and overall return on investment. Hiring an in-house SEO can also achieve great results, but because the working mentality is slightly different, results can seriously vary.

Case Studies and Multiple Success Clients

When shopping around for an in-house SEO or an SEO company, make sure you see their previous work. Allowing a newcomer to this industry to handle your campaign can be disastrous. A portfolio of successful clients is essential and a reputable SEO firm is going to have many case studies to prove their expertise. Should the SEO firm that you’re looking at not have any examples of a successful campaign, keep looking.

Many will argue that building out an in-house team, though more work in the beginning, will be best for the long term and more cost effective. Reputable SEO companies can easily be long-term partners. In fact, many clients that I’ve dealt with have been working with us for close to two years and counting. To figure out which is more cost effective, consider that hiring an in-house SEO with experience is going to cost $60,000-$110,000 per year depending on the demand, state and level of knowledge, and that’s just for one person too. Then there’s the cost of the additional team members, company equipment, desk space and benefits. On the other hand, hiring an SEO firm and investing $4,000-$7,000 per month ($48,000 – $84,000 per year) into your campaign would be a very healthy budget, and more cost effective.

Many companies hire an SEO firm for the reasons I have just outlined, while others build out their own in-house team. Some larger companies have an SEO team, and an SEO firm to get the advantages of both worlds. Whichever route your company takes, make sure that the person or company you hire is reputable, proven and experienced.

5 Reasons why Hiring an SEO Firm is better than an In-House Team is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a great resource for not only Pay Per Click, but also SEO. If you are doing any sort of keyword research, you need to start with this tool, but make sure you know how to use it. With this tool, you can get a good idea of the search volume for any given keyword, its PPC competitiveness, search volume across the globe or in a particular country and many other helpful features. For many, this keyword tool will get the job, done but it’s far from perfect. Here are my five features that I wish the Google Adwords Keyword Tool had.

1. Show Search Volume Based on City/State Level, Not Just Country Level

Having data in a specific geographic location is key for locally focused businesses. Currently, the only numbers we have to work with are geographically focused keywords (E.g. “Portland Electrician”), but how many people in Portland are simply typing in “Electrician” and relying on Google to automatically detect their IP location and serve them local companies? My guess is that service-industry keywords without a geographic location get searched far more than we realize.

There is one solution to this problem; PPC. Targeting specific cities or regions within your Adwords account with industry keywords like “Electrician” can give a good idea of the local searches based on the impressions that keyword gets.

Until Google changes this, the only thing we have to work from is possible PPC data and assumptions. For the most part, I think it’s safe to assume that the majority of the traffic is actually searching with a geographic variable within the keyword (E.g. “Portland Electrician”).

2. Differentiate Search Volume Between Web, Image, Places, Video and Product Search

The search volume number for any given keyword on Google’s Keyword Tool is an aggregate of all searches that are done on Google.com. This presents a unique problem for many marketers because the keyword that they may go after could have several different searcher intents.

For example, if I wanted to rank for the keyword “Mustang Exhaust” because I’m looking to sell more products, I want to know how many searchers are searching the web, image, places, video and product search route.

Because Google doesn’t report the different search avenues, the 1,300 exact searches for “Mustang Exhaust” are getting mixed up among people looking to buy or research exhausts, find sound clips on YouTube, locate a local dealer for installation or people just wanting images of a product. Knowing which channels get the most search volume would help to know where to spend your marketing dollars, whether it’s for SEO, video production and optimization, uploading a Google product feed or setting up a Google Places page (should you be local).

3. Closely Related Search Terms Box is Too Black and White

When you research keywords, you can either have Google pull every possible related keyword or you can get keywords that are closely related to your typed in keyword with the check box shown below.

This is too black and white, there needs to be some middle ground. I would love if checking that box kept the results closely related but not so close that it ignores other very important keywords.

For example, searching for USB Drive only pulls keywords that include that term within the phrase. What about “thumb drives”, “flash drives” and the many variations in between? Using closely related synonyms would prevent any main keywords from falling through the cracks.

4. PPC Competition Bar Needs Some Sort of Basis

Even though this is a PPC tool, it’s still helpful for SEO because it’s supposed to determine the amount of PPC competition for a given keyword. You can generally get an indication of how hard a keyword will be to rank for, based on the amount of business bidding for a keyword. But this Adwords feature is perhaps the most misleading tool Google has made.

The keyword “home mortgage refinance” is claiming a medium competition level yet there is a full page of ads back to the fourth page in the results pages. I’m no PPC expert, but this competition indicator is hardly accurate. Also, what is Google even looking at to determine the competitiveness of a keyword? I can’t find anything explaining the process or formula.

5. Select Target Keywords to Track with Google Program or Third Party Website

Now I really am asking for the world from Google. Selecting keywords within their Adwords Keyword Tool and tracking my sites’ rankings through a new Google service or third party website would be an absolute dream, assuming the data is accurate.

I know what you’re thinking: Why would Google spend millions developing a tool that doesn’t provide them anything in return? My answer: because that’s what Google does with the most of their products. Look at Google Docs, Google Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Gmail and Voice, they’re all meant to grab Internet users and lock us into their network of services in hopes that we use their search engine. Bing, Yahoo and Ask hardly have the level of free services that Google does and they consequently share a pathetic 30 percent of the market. Coincidence?

What do you think? Are these five flaws the biggest with the Adwords Tool? Granted, nothing is perfect, but with enough users suggesting a change with their tool, my hopes are that Google may make a change. Share your thoughts, opinions and suggestions below!

5 Features I Wish the Google Adwords Keyword Tool Had is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

There are a number ways to get your website more visibility: higher search engine rankings, interesting content, pay per click, affiliate marketing and social media. These are all great ways of increasing traffic and most large organizations touch on every mentioned online marketing method. The method I’ve been thinking of lately is having fantastic content; what effect it has on my other online marketing channels and if a site can succeed solely on content to earn it the title of, “Content is King”.

Content is Only King if What You’re Promoting is Actually Interesting

Unless you’re The Oatmeal or you have a huge following like Apple, you might want to reconsider having your main online marketing strategy as content generation and distribution. To have people come to your website because they truly want to, you need to be interesting and provide entertaining or helpful content. “Content is King” is only true when you have a large following or when your content is constantly engaging.

Sites where content truly is king include: DontEvenReply.com (personal favorite), The Oatmeal, ClientsFromHell.net, The Onion, TechCrunch and of course the huge sites like Facebook and YouTube.

Great Content Equals Better Search Engine Rankings?

From an SEO perspective, it’s obvious that having a blog on your website with constant fresh content is a good thing; no argument there. However, just because you post plenty of good content, doesn’t mean your rankings are going to improve directly because of that. Unless your analytics show that your content piece is receiving high levels of search traffic, you cannot directly attribute great search engine rankings because you are a great writer, designer or programmer. But remember, having fresh new content on your site for the search engines to index is just one of hundreds of great ranking factors for the search engines. So, what kind of value does great content have on your overall search engine rankings? My opinion: insignificant considering other methods like onsite optimization and link building.

How Will Great Content Actually Benefit Me?

It all depends on your industry. If you have a website that is funny and people come to you because they actually want to, you don’t really need to do anything other than keep being awesome and posting original content.

If your industry is uneventful or boring to the general public, or you are an informational website or in an industry where no defined market leader has been established, you may want to reconsider focusing your efforts in content, and pursue other online marketing channels like SEO, PPC and social media for a more substantial ROI.

My Business or Industry isn’t Exactly Exciting, How Can I Utilize Content Marketing?

If you can’t drive traffic to your website because of your industry or product, promoting content and linkbait through social media will be your best friend. Using Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Reddit or Digg to get your content in front people’s eyes is just about the only alternative if you’re site can’t do it on its own.

How Will I know if People think my Product or Industry is Interesting?

Are there major discussions, forums or blogs talking about your industry? For example, SEOmoz, a popular SEO resource is popular because they publish interesting articles, helpful tools and have a community of people with the same interests. They’re successful because of great content that appeals to a wide audience and as such, they’re a household name to those in the Internet Marketing industry.

Do you disagree? I think great content is a must, but saying “Content is King” in a general sense might be going too far. Please, leave a comment and get a discussion going. I’d love to know what you think based on your experiences.

Is Content Really King? is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

While the Adwords tool is meant for PPC, it’s also a vital tool when performing keyword research for SEO. Google Adwords identifies the number of searches for specific words or key phrases. However, many people leave with false information because there are several different filters with different numbers.

If you go to the keyword tool and search for “online schools,” “online degrees” and “online education,” you’ll get information about those keywords as well as many other related terms.

Underneath the search field is a checkbox as shown below:

Make sure this is checked; otherwise you will get a huge list of keywords that may not actually apply to your business.

Google automatically presets your location and language to serve you the most relevant results. It sets my location as “United States” and my language as “English.”

You can change this if it doesn’t happen to apply to you by expanding the Advances Search section.

The next step is to simply click search. This is where the tool can get confusing.

If you’re like many, it would appear as though there are 246,000 searches for “online schools” all over the globe. Likewise, somebody would think that there are 201,000 searches for the same keyword in your local area.

This is not true and I’ve had many people regret their decision to pursue these keywords because they just didn’t understand the data.

Over on the left there is a column with “Match Types.” Check the box associated with [Exact]. This will change the keyword numbers to reflect more realistic search volume.

“Why wouldn’t the keyword tool show me exact search volume from the beginning?”

The default match type of “Broad” is referring to the number of searches that involve the phrase. For example, it’s giving you search volume numbers for the keyword “online schools” as well as search volume for all the other keywords that mention that phrase such as “best online schools,” “online schools degrees,” “online high schools” and others.

The other match type, “Phrase,” shows you keywords where the exact phrase of your keyword is used. This includes keywords where the term is used with other words within the phrase. For example, using the Phrase match type while searching “online schools” would give you search volume for other keywords like “best online schools” or “online schools degrees” but not “online high schools” or “online accredited schools” because the original phrase is being broken up.

If you’re looking for how many people search a specific keyword, stay with [Exact].

Now that the data has been changed to realistic numbers, you’ll notice the number of searchers go down drastically.

Because there are some terms that are searched worldwide, Google differentiates the two searches columns to Global and Local. The numbers underneath Global are the amount of searches all around the globe averaged out over 12 months. Searches in the Local column are referring to the location that you specified in the beginning. In our case, they’re showing the number of searches in the Unites States averaged out over 12 months.

That’s basically the gist of the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. There are some other things you can do with this tool to improve your keyword research and discover additional relevant keywords. This is by no means advanced or the end to your keyword research, you still need to analyze your online competition, research the searcher’s intent and decide what’s worth going after given your time and budget.

If you have tips or advice you’d like to add, comment below.

How to Use Google Adwords Keyword Tool for SEO is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

David Segal of The New York Times published “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search,” detailing how JCPenney.com used black-hat SEO to get incredible rankings.

JCPenney’s SEO firm engaged in anchor-text-based paid links, which are against Google’s terms of service. As many know, paid links can produce significant results, but risking your website rankings may not be worth it. Unfortunately, some SEO firms are clearly using this method to boost their client’s rankings, similar to the JCPenney.com disaster.

Now, the muckraking in this article is completely warranted and should happen to prevent this type of search engine manipulation. Many SEO professionals would agree using paid links to boost your rankings is unethical and can come back to burn you. But this article goes beyond this problem and makes all of SEO in general look spammy and black hat.

I’ll give the author credit, he did state, “[Google] draws a pretty thick line between techniques it considers deceptive and ‘white hat’ approaches, which are offered by hundreds of consulting firms and are legitimate ways to increase a site’s visibility.” After reading this article, however, those who are uneducated might be turned off by our profession and method of achieving search engine success.

There Are Good Guys and Bad Guys Everywhere

Just because it happened to JCPenny, doesn’t mean it’s happening everywhere. And it doesn’t mean that every SEO firm is sneaking around tricking the search engines with unethical, black-hat SEO strategies. Sure JCPenney.com gives SEO a bad name. Similarly, the officer from the classic, “don’t tase me bro” YouTube video gives cops a bad name. And Richard Simmons gives fitness a bad name.

There Are Great SEO Companies Out There

There are credible, trustworthy, exceptional SEO companies out there that participate in ethical, white hat SEO services that don’t violate any search engine rules.

Aiding websites to gain more visibility within the search engines is not deceptive, but it can be. If you’re company is relevant for certain terms, just like JCPenney.com was for all the terms it ranked for since they clearly offered those products, you can benefit from SEO or hiring an SEO firm. But, the problem with JCPenney.com, is it (or its SEO firm) went about it in the wrong way.

Before Hiring an SEO Firm, Question Them

An SEO company worth your while has nothing to hide. There may be some complicated details you simply don’t understand, but if the SEO person/company you’ve hired can’t give examples, explain their processes, or the end result of their efforts, that can be a red flag. Keep in mind some processes many SEO firms have can legitimately be classified as “proprietary information” and they may not tell you.

Not to toot the horn of the company that pays my bills, but SEO.com is and will always provide white hat, quality SEO services to their clients that abide by the rules of the search engines. We don’t take shortcuts, we don’t believe in paid links and we have never had a client receive a penalty as a result of our efforts. Whether it is SEO.com or another firm, make sure you are leaving your website in the hands of proven professionals.

Is Your SEO in Good Hands? Response to the JCPenney Disaster is a post by SEO expert Kevin W. Phelps. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.