Google has released a new +1 button similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, according to a Mashable post and a SearchEngineLand post. The new feature will allow Google users to, essentially, vote for pages and videos on the web and those votes will be displayed publicly. The new feature has not yet been released to all searchers but users with a Google account can choose to join the experiment at Google Experimental.

In the new promo video, Google says that when you click on the +1 button, “you’re telling your friends, your family, and the rest of the world: ‘This is something you should check out.’”

Matt Cutts was quoted in the SearchEngineLand post by Danny Sullivan:

“The primary benefit is that search gets better. It gets better in the user interface immediately, and we’ll look at it as a potential signal to improve search quality as well. I find social search extremely useful, especially with the recent updates. This change continues the evolution of social search, and it’s a natural progression to improve the search experience,” said Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who is most known for leading Google’s search spam fighting team but who also helped launch Google Social Search in 2009.

Another failed attempt at Social or will this one stick?

With such failures as Orkut and Buzz, Google has been relentlessly trying to get into the social space–and this +1 thing, may be their opportunity. While Google has a wide reach of users because of its products (e.g., Gmail, Google Analytics, etc.), Google has not been good at connecting users like Facebook does. For instance, when I signed up for Google Buzz, I only found 50+ Buzz friends to follow. Many believe that the new +1 feature will be more visible because it’s existence right on the SERP.

What could this mean for SEO?

According to Mashable, Google says that “+1 data will directly influence its market share dominating search rankings.” Thus, we may see modifications to the algorithm. My guess is that we won’t see major algorithm changes for a while–at least while the button is in experimental mode. However, SEO firms and content farms, may have to start worrying about how the +1 button will affect rankings. Sure, you may have a lot of great links, but how many people +1′d (Plus One’d) your website?

If they haven’t already done so, many SEO firms will need start tying SEO campaigns with other social media and content marketing campaigns. Interestingly, this new feature is being released just weeks after the Panda/Farmer Update. Perhaps, Google has realized that its use of the algorithm to populate the SERPs isn’t enough to produce quality search results. From what I’ve read, Google has been known for not allowing people to help pare down search results as Blekko has done. Do you think Google has officially changed its love affair with a algo-only search?

What do you think? If the +1 button changes search rankings, will you change how you do SEO?

Update: I noticed an interesting comment from Marcos on the SearchEngineLand post:

Unfortunately I predict another bummer. The +1 button (named by robots) can get wide adoption among webmasters keen on SEO but who’s gonna click on them? You don’t get instant gratification from your friends or followers for sharing, just a bot will be feeded.

Poor Google, a company run by lonely engineers and their robot friends, instead of sociable people…

I agree with Marcos that people will need an added incentive to click the +1 button. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google tries to get you to add your Facebook account so that when you click +1, it automatically posts the site to Facebook. Does anyone else have any ideas on how Google might incentivize “normal” people (not webmasters or SEOs) to click on the +1 buttons?

Other Articles about the +1 Button:

• SearchEngineLand: Meet +1: Google’s Answer To The Facebook Like Button
• Mashable: Google’s Answer to the Facebook “Like” Button: The “+1”
• TechCrunch: With +1, Google Search Goes Truly Social — As Do Google Ads
• Google’s Official Blog: +1’s: the right recommendations right when you want them—in your search results
• SEOMoz.org: Google +1 And The Rise of Social SEO – Shows a nice graph of Facebook share’s correlation with current Google search results
• Malcolm Coles: Google +1: What normal person would ever use it? – Interesting update about adding the +1 button to the browser.

Google's +1 button and how it may change SEO is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

A few months ago, I posted 7 SEO idiots and subsequently received myriad ideas for other SEO idiots. Below you’ll find 12 more SEO idiots with dialogue and oatmeal-like depictions. Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas. For those ideas I’ve used, I’ve given the comment author a link.

Poor Link Requester

Three years ago, I remember hearing that 3-way link exchanges would be the new wave of linkbuilding. Unfortunately, those who still request these types of link exchanges are behind the curve. Many SEO idiots who request these link exchanges, ask for a link from your main homepage and only offer you a pathetic link on their affiliate site’s links page.

Submitted by Jim Rudnick

1997 SEO

These SEOs had their glory days in the late 90s. They were able to game even the best of search engines. However, getting SEO results in the late 90s has no bearing on the ability to achieve rankings today. Many of these SEOs focus on meta keywords and keyword stuffing. Stay away from these old-timers.

Submitted by Jill Kocher

Blackhatter Who Continuously Raises SE Flags

I’m not out to bash any particular SEO company here, especially in lieu of recent events. But, let’s be honest, blackhat or greyhat practices don’t just hurt the reputation of the offending SEO company–poor practices also hurt the entire SEO industry.

Submitted by Gary Young

Garage SEO with a Confidential Client List

If no client list exists, that can only mean 1 of 2 things. Either he/she signed a confidentiality agreement with his/her clients or he/she doesn’t have any clients worth mentioning. I’m going to guess it’s the latter. Lack of a company website should be a good red flag that the individual has no idea what he/she is doing.

Submitted by Eric Miltsch

The “I won’t come to your office for less than $5000″ SEO

Evidently, there are some pompous individuals in the industry. More power to them. Even if an SEO can provide incredible results and charge high prices, that doesn’t give him permission to treat others with a “holier than thou” attitude.

Submitted by Warner Carter

Backlink Buyer

Much like the Blackhatter above, the Backlink Buyer makes a living from buying and selling links. While this SEO may be good at staying ahead of Google’s spam net, his tactics will eventually be discovered.

Submitted by Bill Bolmeier

Future SEO

These SEOs are thinkers but never doers. They’ll talk your ear off about new, innovative techniques and how they could pull off the “perfect” campaign. But when it comes to actually doing the work, they never perform.

Submitted by Jonas

Web Designer SEO

These yahoos are similar to the Conversion Expert who thinks that conversion optimization will somehow result in higher rankings. Admittedly, I used to be one of these SEOs. If someone is making design recommendations to improve SEO, this person is probably a web developer who has merely dabbled in SEO.

Submitted by NatC

Moon on a Stick SEO

These SEOs are great. They can make huge ranking promises with unbelievable guarantees or warranties. However, their contracts’ fine print usually mentions that they’ll only get rankings for long-tail or obscure keyphrases.

Submitted by theWebalyst

Off Page Only SEO

Contrasting the Sparkling, White Hat SEO, this SEO prefers to do off-page SEO only. In fact, this SEO probably has no clue how to perform on-page optimization. Good luck trying to get him to do keyword research and on-page SEO.

Submitted by Afzal Khan

Packaging SEO

Because SEO is one of those things that can be compartmentalized into specific packages (NOT), this SEO has taken the packaging syndrome to a whole new level. He makes it easy on you by allowing you to choose from an internet marketing menu of sorts. Don’t get me wrong, many SEO ‘tasks’ can be packaged, but SEO as a whole, is too complex and constantly changing to be easily segmented into basic packages.

Submitted by Daniel Dessinger

PPC Guy

The PPC Guy SEO has never learned what the word, “organic,” means. Hey, PPC is basically the same as SEO, right? At least that what he thinks. He believes his expert PPC skills fully qualify him as an SEO expert as well.

Submitted by Rasmus Himmelstrup

12 More SEO Idiots (or Experts) to Avoid is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Some of the SEO “experts” we encounter exhibit less than tasteful attributes. Having been inspired by The Oatmeal, I’ve taken the liberty of illustrating some of the bad SEO professionals.

I understand that I might be slightly hypocritical in this post. I’ve found myself displaying some of the characteristics below.

Big Words/Acronyms SEO

You may have caught yourself using jargon that might be over your clients’ heads. These SEO Experts may know the trade, they just lack the ability to communicate effectively with clients. If you notice that your client has a blank look, you may want to ask if they don’t understand something you’re saying.

Sparkling, White Hat SEO

Don’t get me wrong, white hat is the way to go in SEO. However, some incompetent SEOs may claim that their lack of linkbuilding is due to high moral principles. They put on a facade of “White Hat.” These SEOs either don’t get linkbuilding or they don’t want to put forth the effort to do it. Of course there are plenty of gray/black hat ways of building links. But other linkbuilding methods such as submitting a press release, creating quality linkbait, etc. are legitimate and great for SEO.

Conversion Expert Turned SEO

The Conversion Expert SEO is more uncommon. These SEOs somehow mistakenly believe that user experience is intricately connected with SEO. They carry the label of “Internet Marketer” but they only talk about conversion and design. The idea of increasing traffic rarely crosses their minds

Self-Proclaimed Social Media Expert

The Social Media Expert may have been an SEO who was drawn into the hype of Social Media. He tells the world that he is a Social Media Expert because he knows how to use Facebook and Twitter. He frequently talks about “going viral,” although he has no idea how to go viral. And sadly, he measures his effectiveness based on the number of followers and friends he acquires.

IT Guy

SEO is an IT thing right? Wrong. Unfortunately, the in-house IT guy thinks that SEO belongs to the IT department since it involves algorithms and coding. While SEO may require someone with a bit of HTML skills, it should belong to the marketing department and more specifically a “Search Team.”

Bad Grammar Offshore SEO

We get plenty of emails and comments filled with poor translation grammar. Do you really want someone who’s using a translation tool to do your keyword research? These SEOs may be cheap but not very effective.

Black Hat SEO

The Black Hat SEO should be avoided like the plague. He may get you fast results, but those results will quickly decline after Google notices the spammy tactics around your website. Black Hat SEOs will always take the easy way out and often do more damage than good.

Any more ideas?

Do you agree? What other SEO “Experts” should you avoid? Share your ideas in a comment.

7 SEO Idiots (I Mean 'Experts') to Avoid is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Creating and publishing infographics has become the new fad for attracting linkbait and traffic. In the last year, we’ve watched the craze for infographics skyrocket as can be seen by this screenshot from Google trends below for the keywords ‘infographic’ and ‘infographics.’

Not only have social media marketers taken up the infographic craze, but SEOs as well. Infographics, done well, can build a large portfolio of quality links. I’ve since noticed many SEO companies who are developing infographics for their clients and pushing them in the social media sphere.

When I discovered that so many SEO infographics already exist, I decided to rate them. David McCandless, at informationisbeautiful.net, revealed four criteria when evaluating information design:

1. Interestingness - Is the content relevant and original, such that the viewer sees value in it?
2. Integrity - Can I trust the content?
3. Form - Is it pleasing to the eye?
4. Function - Is this information useful and useable?

Take a look at his infographic about infographics:

Below, you’ll see some of the best infographics I could find about online marketing. I’ve rated them by giving pluses (+) for each category discussed above.

SEO Infographics

Elliance has, by far, the most search marketing infographics. The infographics cover everything from PDF Optimization to Keyword Clustering. I found most of the infographics contained quality graphics and interesting ideas, but they slightly lacked in functionality — meaning, most of the concepts presented are low-level, basic concepts that most SEOs should already know.

SEO Factors

• Interestingness: +
• Integrity: +
• Form: +
• Function: +

Long Tail SEO

• Interestingness: +
• Integrity: +
• Form: +
• Function: ++

Link Juice

• Interestingness: +
• Integrity:
• Form: +++
• Function: +

Google PageRank Explained

I found this infographic very beneficial in visualizing the Internet in terms of PageRank. PageRank is valued exponentially. While it’s easy to increase PageRank by 1 at the bottom of the mountain (e.g., from 2 to 3), it becomes much harder to increase by 1 (e.g., from 6 to 7) as you move up the mountain.

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: +
• Form: +
• Function: +++

Wired Magazine published an interactive infographic about the life of a blog post. With a flash-based, interactive spin, Wired has covered all the avenues of blogging as it moves around the Web, being picked up by search engines, data miners, and social bookmarks. If you haven’t seen it I suggest you check it out.

The Life Cycle of a Blog Post

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: +++
• Function: +

Similar to Wired’s infographic above, The Social Media Effect by Infographicworld.com, shows the travels of content as it makes it’s way through the social media world. My favorite part of this particular infographic is how all the arrows, eventually, point to a Google search engine result for that story. It’s a nice way of showing that great content will bring in lots of quality links.

The Social Media Effect

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: +
• Form: ++
• Function: +

Rank Fishkin, from SEOMoz.org, created some pretty creative infographics. Although they are not the most visually appealing, they share some really creative insights about SEO. Great job, Rand.

Professions at the Intersection of Technology, Marketing & Statistics

This is true that SEOs need to wear many hats.

• Interestingness: +++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: +
• Function: ++

How SEOs Spend Their Time

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: +++! Those of you working directly with clients know how true this infographic is
• Form: +
• Function: +

Scatterplot of SEO Tactics

This is one of my favorite infographics as it is really helpful for SEOs to know how to spend their time.

• Interestingness: +++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: +
• Function: ++

The Size of the Mobile Market

We’ve seen the mobile market skyrocket in the last few years. Astonishingly, there are only 1.4 billion internet users compared with 4 billion mobile phone users. Any business would do well to understand how to tap into the mobile market. With the influx of smart phones, we’re making sure our clients show up on mobile searches.

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: +
• Form: ++
• Function: +

Individuals and Their Online Identities

Flowtown created an interesting infographic about how people utilize the Internet to manage their personal identities. Interesting quote: “Search engines and social media sites now play a central role in building one’s identity online.”

• Interestingness: +++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: ++
• Function: +

Google Facts and Figures

Although Pingdom’s infographic about Google doesn’t entirely pertain to SEO, I thought it was a great visualization of numbers. It is interesting to note how Google’s innovative search technology has made it the leader among search engines.

• Interestingness: +
• Integrity: ++
• Form: ++
• Function: ++

DIYSEO has, by far, some of the most visually creative SEO infographics out there. Most of the infographics show how SEO is a must-have in Internet marketing. While I’m only showing three here, DIYSEO has lots more. Go over to the site to check them out.

The Case of Disappearing Ink

Interesting visual graph displaying search methods by demographic:

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: +++
• Function: +

Value of SEO v. PPC

This quote emphasizes the importance of SEO: “When buying, PPC links produce 25% less conversion than SEO.”

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: +++
• Function: +

SEO ROI is King

It’s nice to know that SEO holds the largest ROI.

• Interestingness: ++
• Integrity: ++
• Form: +++
• Function: +

SEO FAQs – A Guide

Datadial.net created the most comprehensive SEO infographic. While it doesn’t offer much original material, it covers everything from keyword research to SEO tactics. It’s a nice way to sum up the basics of SEO in one graphic.

• Interestingness: +
• Integrity: +
• Form: +
• Function: ++

Well, there you have it — a semi-complete list of the best SEO infographics out there.

Visualize More Links and Traffic — Ranking the Best SEO Infographics is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

2008 was a bright year for Flash as Google and Adobe teamed up to provide flash indexing techniques for better search results. However, two years later and SEOs are still struggling to rank Flash sites high in search engines. Granted, we have lots of proof that search engines do index Flash text, images, and links. But unfortunately, many limitations still make it difficult to get the kind of rankings we enjoy with plain, old HTML. Indeed, SEO and Flash are like water and oil — mixing the two has been nearly impossible.

Why Flash is Bad for SEO

While Flash is indexable by Google’s virtual user spider, we have yet to see a great deal of quality rankings from completely Flash websites — especially Flash sites for small, local businesses.

Unique URLs

With most Flash websites, many pages are contained, dynamically, in one .swf file. Most Flash sites use a ‘#’ to distinguish between pages. Sadly, Google doesn’t treat different ‘#’ URLS as separate pages. Consequently, Flash sites lose the extra SEO boost that comes from a multi-page website. Flex can fix the URL problem, yet many flash sites still don’t utilize Flex.

Smart Phone Dilemma

Smart phone users increase rapidly, expecting to reach 1 billion this year. Flash websites without an HTML alternative will be missing out on a growing chunk of their market (Restaurant websites really need to catch on here).

Poor User Experience

This heading is debatable as many would argue that Flash allows for a richer, more interactive experience. While this is true, many inexperienced designers aren’t in touch with contemporary Web usability. Flash adds a considerable load time that most users don’t have the patience for. While long intros, blaring music, and hidden buttons may seem like a thing of the Internet past, many websites still employ these revolting techniques.

Less Content

Flash websites typically have less indexable content. Let’s face it; a long page of keyword-rich text has more SEO sway.

When to Use Flash?

In my opinion, only two situations allow for a flash website:

1. Big Brand: Because big brands already have a truckload of links and a lot of search credibility, search engine optimization isn’t such a big concern. Pepsi’s principal revenue isn’t generated through their website. Rather, the website acts as a branding tool — much like an interactive television commercial. And, because Pepsi is such a big company and it has “pepsi.com,” we are safe to assume that SEO is not among their priorities (although the website should at least rival Coca-Cola and appear somewhere on the 1st page for “soft drinks.”)
2. Link-Thirsty Content: Link-thirsty Flash is not simply a “cool” animation well-liked by the marketing committee. Link-thirsty content clearly has the ability to go social and thus it attracts links like a porch light attracts moths. Mono put a lot of creative effort into their monoface application and consequently, I’ve seen that link passed around quite a bit.
   Games and applications might also be considered link-thirsty. Grooveshark’s slick interface and its vast music database gives it the ability to focus more on link-bait and social media rather than SEO.

How to Build an SEO-Friendly Flash website

Here are your options:

1. Use SWFObject: SWFObject allows you to place HTML code behind the Flash. It also keeps code cleaner by removing nasty object tags.
2. Don’t Call External Files with Flash: Google will treat external files such as XML files as separate pages. Make sure all of your text and links are embedded in the swf.
3. Use Minimal Flash: Adobe uses a Flash banner near the top of its website while still including the bulk of the textual content in HTML. This Web development technique is a common among corporate websites.
4. Don’t Use Flash: Wollzelle, has an attitude against Flash. The innovative agency in Vienna has developed a surprisingly fresh alternative to using Flash, with JavaScript code that can impress visitors just as well. Unfortunately, there are more visually creative Flash developers than there are JavaScript coders.

While I’ve given Flash a good lashing, I don’t mean to pooh-pooh it altogether. Flash is a powerful branding tool and also provides a good framework for application development.

Merging Flash with SEO is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

It’s great to have so many wonderful tools to build sturdy marketing campaigns and evaluate the results, but they should never detract our attention on our end-user, the customer. Here is a bit of advice that was common knowledge before the internet, but is often forgotten now: Know your target market.

It sounds like obvious advice, but many online marketers fail to grasp this principle. They’re too often consumed with mass amounts of data produced from keyword generators and analytics. Business owners often fail in getting down to the level of their customers. I’m talking about asking questions of your target market. (Selecting your target market is a huge task in itself. I’ll cover that in a later post).

A great place to learn about your target market is in your own immediate and extended family. Is any member of your family in your target market? Below is an interesting and fun test that you can do to improve your SEO and capture the interest in your target market. In effect it is a way to create a simple focus group from your family. Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide introduced the Mom Test to improve conversion and usability for website users. For help in explanation, I’ll pretend we’re running a website, selling shoes to women in the baby boomer generation. One obvious market audience member in my family would be mom. For this specific example, I’m naming my test after mom as well.

My “MOM” Search Test

First, I would sit Mom down at the computer and invite her to look for some shoes that she’d like to buy. Here is the key to the test: be quiet and watch closely to see what she does:

• What search engine does she use?
• What keywords does she use to search?
• How does she navigate the SERP (Search engine result page)? Does she simply choose the #1 result?
• How quickly does she bounce back to the SERP?
• What other searches does she perform?
• Does she click on any of the paid-search ads?
• I’d then ask her to check out her favorite social site for a few minutes (yes, mom does have a Facebook account). Does she click on any of the ads there? What groups is she apart of?

Of course, because this is only one person, you can’t generalize your entire marketing strategy from this test alone. However, the point of this test is to help you find some interesting information that you never realized about your target market. It may spark some ideas that you would want to further research. It can even confirm that you are on the right path.

For this example test, I’d personally, find a few more moms and repeat the test if possible. I’d then go to my keyword tools and analytics reports to make better SEO predictions.

So next time you start keyword research, first try a test like this. You will receive insights that will make your keyword research and other SEO efforts much more valuable and knowledge-based.

Really Getting to Know Your Target Market is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

I’m bouncing around the web again. I’ve been searching for the latest news on American Idol’s Adam Lambert and haven’t found a great deal of worthwhile information–at least information that encourages me to stay on the site for more than 30 seconds.

If you’re regularly checking your website analytics, you’ve looked at your bounce rate. “Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).” (Google Analytics).

A high bounce rate is bad. Some folks may, unknowingly, increase their bounce rate as they increase their traffic. This leads to reports showing wonderful increases in traffic, but no increase in sales–no added profit. (Note: Be careful about SEO companies who only promise traffic.) Bounce rate is a fundamental statistic that is affected by both SEO and Conversion.

Think of a bouncing beach ball. This is your potential customer. Your website is where that beach ball lands. If the landing is too hard, your visitor leaves in a jiffy. Thus, one key to keeping your visitors on your website (a longer visit provides a host of advantages, including: a longer branding experience, customer feedback, and increased conversions, to name a few), is by a soft landing.

Create a soft landing with better Conversion:

• promote UGC (user-generated content)
• include more videos
• include more images
• quality design
• quality and quantity of content

Bounce rate is also heavily affected by SEO. It’s one thing to get traffic, but a much better thing to get targeted traffic.

Targeted traffic = decreased bounce rate

Bounce rate vs. Google

Much has been said about your site’s bounce rate versus Google rankings. I believe Google’s algorithm accounts for bounce rate. Rather than boring you with my opinion, here’s a few articles in the bounce rate vs. google discussion:

• http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2009/jan/5.html
• http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/11/21/is-bounce-rate-a-google-ranking-factor
• http://www.exposedseo.com/bounce-rate-vs-google.php

Proper keyword research with relevancy at its premise prevents a high bounce rate. Don’t stuff your title tag and meta description with language that is deceitful, over-exaggerated, or irrelevant. Bounce rate is an important statistic–just as important as traffic.

Stop that Bouncing! is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Believe it or not, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can make a tremendous difference to your website’s search engine rankings. Simply put, CSS simplifies the code on your website, making it more readable or “indexable” by search engine spiders.

One example of “un-indexable” code is your site’s images. Search engine spiders are pretty smart, however, they are still not smart enough to read the text in your images. With CSS, you can convert your textual images into selectable text while still retaining most of its graphic look. Check the heading and navigation text on your website by doing what I call the “Selectable Test.” Here’s how to put your images against the Selectable Test.

Try selecting the text below with your cursor. Do you notice any difference between the two boxes?

Search Engine Spider

One of the headings is an image while the other is an actual heading with CSS styling. Even with the proper alt attribute (alt=”search engine spider”), the first, selectable heading receives higher approval by search engine spiders. Why? Search engine spiders have a hard time trusting that what is placed in your alt tags are relevant and not spammed with keywords. Headings are not inherently hidden from web browsers. Therefore, they can receive more trust.

There are oodles of quality on-site optimization techniques such as passing the Selectable Test. Talk to your website developer. If any answers to the following questions are yes, provide the following solution to your website developer:

• Have you used images instead of an unordered list for the navigation links?

  Solution: Rebuild menus with CSS

• Have you used tables in the underlying website layout?

  Solution: Rebuild the layout with CSS (it is theorized that clean, concise code, capitalizing on indexable content, may positively benefit your search rankings)

• Do you have CSS styles and JavaScript in the body of your site?

  Solution: Use script and link tags to reference to JavaScript files and stylesheets.

• Have you used an extensive amount of flash? (Yes, I know Google indexes flash content but I’m not yet convinced of its quality as pertaining to search engine rankings)

  Solution: Use Google’s swfobject to add proper text.

• Do you have any hidden text on your website? Have you matched colors of your text to the background color?

  Solution: Remove hidden text!

Feel free to tweet me if you’d like me to take a look at your website. You can also post it on the forums and get some advice from our expert forum members.

A Match Made in Heaven: CSS & SEO is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Lets face it. Link building is drab work. It’s the kind of work most of us like to hand off to the”‘next guy.” Nevertheless, I firmly advocate its role in Search Engine Optimization. Google’s key indicator of the “good,” “better,” and “best” websites depends on number of backlinks, and where those links are coming from.

I assume you, the reader, have already figured this out. An SEO firm without offering link building strategies to its clients might as well pack up. A site with no links is like a telephone pole with no wires—useless. Consequently, instead of asking “if” link building should be done, online marketers are always asking “how” it will be done. What’s the best strategy?

A relative of mine created an informative website, after research, about “Good Security Questions.” That was over two years ago. The site lacked all the bells and whistles that come with newer web 3.0, but it was content-rich, and more importantly, there was a niche market available who needed the information the site provided.

He didn’t know much about Search Engine Optimization. He didn’t think much about keyword research or quality link building. I spoke to him recently about the results he’s had lately. His site now ranks #1 for “security questions.” He also told me some larger corporate websites such as American Express, Delta, Prudential, and ING Direct recently changed their security questions to match the list of questions he had written on his website. People are also beginning to link to his site and use his content at the cost of little to no SEO effort on his part.

His results reveal an old rule that’s been around ever since the first neanderthal man showed his prehistoric friends how to make fire. If you want people to listen to you, say something they want to hear. Thus, before you spend time and money developing an extensive link building strategy, first, provide that your content is “link-thirsty”—make it useful, interesting, timely, or outrageous (see some of Adam’s tips about Buzz Marketing)!

Even better, include “quality content” as the first priority on your link building plan. Indirectly, appropriating your content (appropriate: suitable or fitting for a particular purpose, person, occasion) is, by far, the most successful link building strategy on the planet. If done right, link building will work for you—no more mindless directory submissions. At a bonus, you’ll get traffic from relevant sources–which means higher conversion rates. Here are a few tips to appropriate your content (This stuff isn’t breaking news…just common sense principles of which many companies fail to apply):

• Research and know your topic. This shouldn’t be difficult because you are already a guru of your industry.
• Be informative and as detailed as possible. (Word of caution: Quantity is good as long as you know how to present it in a comfortable, readable manner. Use lists, headings, and varied amounts of italicizing and bolding. Remember, people like to learn, but they don’t like to read)
• Link out to your sources. Google looks for links on your site as extra avenues to gather further information on your topic. Don’t be a dead end on the web.
• Make lists and tables. People like to gather information fast. Tables make it easy to compare items. You could even provide an objective microsite comparing your product with your competitors’ products (this only works if you, honestly, have the best product/service on the market).
• Tell stories and be narrative. This adds flavor to your content. Write with flamboyant, playful, or exciting language. Don’t always be so serious. People want to know there is a human being behind your content and your business.
• Be original. Are you telling something people already know? If it’s already known, take a new twist or add your own opinion. (Don’t copy content from other sites! First, this is plagiarism and second, Google doesn’t like duplicate content).
• Involve Users. Yes, you will need to jump on the Web 3.0 bandwagon. Provide means to comment, write reviews, vote on items, etc.
• Check your spelling and grammar. Nothing is better at killing your credibility than poor writing. Hint: Get a professional editor to check your work.

Is Your Content Link-Thirsty? is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

Making the most of traditional advertising means transforming nacho eating, beer drinking, Super Bowl fans into online, active participants quickly. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even watch the game. But I did watch the Super Bowl ads online. And one thing was clear: Super Bowl ads are making more efforts to “pull” visitors to the virtual world and get them involved, where they can be be impressed with brands and form infancy loyalty to the advertisers.

As always, GoDaddy.com aired their painfully un-witty ads basing their persuasion, principally, on the sex appeal.

CareerBuilder.com won the prize for cleverness and humor. However, the amount of interactivity and conversion power was rather lacking online. They’ve made an effort to allow visitors to share video clips from the ad on facebook—what a revolutionary idea (please notice the sarcasm in my voice). When I searched “Career Builder Super Bowl Ad” I found a sponsored link with this green url in the description: www.CareerBuilder.com/Super_Bowl_Ad . . . I chuckled when this link took me to a 404 error page.

I believe hulu.com took the cake for successfully bringing and keeping visitors to their website. And they did it simply by showing the Super Bowl ads that spectators had already seen. SocialMedia gave hulu the grand-winning prize at the tweetbowl. Twitter-ers still continue to tweet the website as they share their favorite ads to the “tweet-world.” A cnet article about hulu‘s ad has received over 3000 diggs, and delicious participants are bookmarking their favorite Super Bowl ads from hulu.com/superbowl as we speak. I’ll admit, I’ve even sent links of my favorite ads from hulu to friends and family.

What did they do? They aired one memorable commercial with Alec Baldwin showing their “.com” logo and also developed a user-friendly, professional, and speedy, Super Bowl portal page. The result? They got talked about and now they’re getting traffic.

Being a search engine optimizer, there is one aspect of their online approach in which I believe they failed, therefore missing potential traffic. A quick Google search for “Super Bowl Ads” doesn’t show hulu‘s page within the first five pages. “Watch Super Bowl Ads” puts the site at number 19 on the second page. I don’t know if marketers at hulu planned on an SEO strategy for the page, but here are a couple of ideas they could have followed:

• Begin link building months in advance with “Super Bowl Ads” in the anchor text. Yahoo shows only a handful of backlinks to the page.
• Do a quick analysis of the site (because of all the javascript and flash script)  to improve keyword usage and spiderability.

All in all, the site’s design is marvelously simple. It far outweighs, AOL’s fanhouse.com, which is the number one result for “Watch Super Bowl Ads”.  Corporations should continue to think outside the “TV” box and into the virtual world, using a variety of methods—SEO being a necessity.

Super Bowl-ing Online with SEO is a post by SEO expert David Scoville. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.