Here are the details.

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Good luck from all of us at SEO.com

How to Set up Google Alerts

In a nutshell, Google Alerts are updates sent to your Gmail account that let you know about the most recent Google results based on queries you want to stay informed on. Here is how to get started:

1. Sign into your Gmail account
2. Go into “Account settings.” Click on  “Alerts” directly beneath “My products”
3. Let Google know the search queries you want to be alerted about, (for most SEO campaigns this will be targeted keywords and  branded terms)
4. Set how often you want to receive these alerts
5. Set up a quality filter preference (how many), this can be handy in that alerts can quickly clutter up an inbox
6. Tell Google where to deliver your alerts. This is useful if you have an address you use exclusively for clients
7. Click on “Create Alert”

The other day as I was reviewing a client’s Gmail inbox, I came across the usual three to eight alerts I receive daily (this can also be set to as-it-happens and once a week) for the keywords and branded terms I want to stay current on. The first Google Alert I opened, led me to a blog post that had been flagged because it contained the query “cocktail dresses,” (Google loves to crawl and index content!). The first thing that came to mind was to see if this blog met my criteria for a guest blog post opportunity. In this case, the blog didn’t have the authority and social following that I like to see before reaching out, but it did allow me to place a well thought-out comment that was relevant to the topic of post. While the link was no-follow (doesn’t pass link juice), search engines still index the comment. These types of links still hold value if they come from a relevant, related site. It’s also a good opportunity to increase brand awareness because Google will associate the comment and content of the blog with the link pointing back to your client’s site.

Forum Commenting

The next Google Alert I opened led me to a website where it had found the keyword “vintage clothing” in a question posted on Yahoo Answers. As it turns out, a Yahoo community member was looking for a great place online to shop for vintage clothing. Bingo! It just so happens I know of one. I responded by letting the member know about my client’s collection of vintage clothing and dresses and included a URL in my response. Not only was this a great opportunity to increase my client’s brand awareness, but also to take a potential customer to the exact page on my client’s site where she can find the products she is looking for.

Product Reviews

The next alert I opened was flagged for the keyword “rockabilly dresses.” One of the results led me to a fashion blog that had a high PageRank, domain authority and a large social following.  As I  navigated through the site, I came across a guest post letting me know that the site owner might be open to the possibility of another one. I proceeded to contact the blog owner who responded the next day saying that while she isn’t accepting guest posts at this time, she would be interested in doing a product review. As luck would have it, my client is open to giving away products in exchange for reviews (keeping SEO optimization in mind of course) and hence a mutually beneficial relationship is born.

Sizing up Your Competition

The next alert I clicked on was flagged for the keyword “vintage dresses” and led me to the vintage dresses page on a competitor’s website. While I won’t be requesting a link or a guest blog post, it does gives me an opportunity to take a closer look at a their site, analyze their backlinks, and look for new link opportunities. In this case, I found some great blogs I will be contacting for potential guest blog posts. These alerts are also handy to get a feel for topics or keywords that are trending in your client’s industry as well as for ideas to create content around.

Public Relations and Reputation Management

Using Google News Alerts is a good way to keep an eye on the great (or not so great) things people are saying about your clients on the web and can be a valuable tool and resource for any reputation management campaign. It’s an easy way to stay updated on any recent news, industry events, conferences, summits, etc., that your client is involved in and forgot to mention. These can turn into an opportunity for a press release or a blog post. You want to keep people in the know about the all the great things your client is doing!

Business Directories and Listings

Using Google Alerts can also lead you to business directories and listings that are specific to your clients industry or niche. These types of relevant links can help to build the overall authority of your website.

While not all alerts are going to be link opportunities, if you’re willing to dig a little you might be surprised at what you’ll find. Let me know about anything I might have missed or share a success story of your own from using Google Alerts in the comments below.

A link farm is a website with a high number of links to different websites with no relevance or category logic, grouping, organization, or relevance to the domain name.

If you land on a site and there are hundreds of links all over with many unrelated topics, you’ve probably landed on a link farm. Link farms ARE spam and will be considered as such by Search Engines. The key purpose of link farms are to easily and illegitimately send signals to search engines to assist in ranking.

A few important things to keep in mind when it comes to link farms:

1. If you’re using link farms in any way for your SEO, STOP! It will not serve your clients end goal to rank well and long.
2. If you take a client on or have a website where you find your website has somehow been included in a link farm take corrective action to be removed.
3. And most of all, remember that SEO is ALL ABOUT RELEVANCE. Links farms are the exact opposite of obtaining the correct relevance signals to rank organically. The best and most legitimate way to build an quality SEO marketing campaign is through legitimate digital marketing initiatives like guest blogging, public relations, high level directory link building, internal blogging and user generated content, social media and keeping your business at the forefront of news and minds so that natural links are acquired.

It’s important to do everything you can to diversify your link portfolio and make your links appear as natural as possible. This means having different types of relevant links coming from various different domains and IP addresses.

SEO Director

A director may be one of the most important hiring decisions as far as online marketing personnel goes.  A talented SEO director can make or break an SEO strategy.  This individual is ultimately responsible for measuring and growing online marketing metrics.  Finding someone who has vision and is well-rounded is critical.  Look for a director who has experience in research, analytics and actually reports on metrics.  Experience writing and implementing SEO strategy along with other online verticals such as conversion optimization, paid search and lead generation are just a few skills you want to add to your check list.

SEO Specialist

A search engine optimization specialist is going to be your Director’s right-hand man.  Look for someone with a history in quality link building.  A good SEO specialist will have examples of past work success and will be able to give guidance when building a solid link building portfolio.  Someone with experience in customer relations or engaging in customer interaction will be important, especially in today’s online environment where social media is large part of any successful online marketing strategy.

Link Builder

A good link builder is worth their weight in gold.  Anyone can find links to sites with low page rank or domain authority.  A solid link builder will understand quality link building and how to build a link portfolio that looks natural to the search engines.  They should not be satisfied with just link building but link maintenance as well so that overall link quantity continues to rise year after year.  It is important to find someone with networking skills that will build relationships which will convert into .edu, .gov and other high value links.

Content and Copywriter

We have all heard that “content is king”.  While this remains true, that content must be unique and engaging.  Consumers are demanding a better surfing experience and the search engines are continuously updating their algorithms to look for content that is truly written around what searchers want to see.  A good copywriter can write onsite content, informative press releases, occasional industry blogging, and engage in social media updates.  Each of these tactics will only become more important as your online presence grows.  Critical skills also include someone is who is great at research, and can write quickly while remaining articulate and creative.

Outsourcing

As a final part of your SEO team consider hiring experts in the respective field.  Having someone analyze your strategy and link portfolio with fresh eyes, one who knows what to look for, will give you an advantage over your competition.  Keep in mind that there are many options for SEO agencies and consultants.  Look for an agency, like SEO.com, that rank for related search terms in the SEO industry, can provide good case studies of past successes, and can map how they are going to show you success metrics for your campaign.  An agency will typically have all of the above resources at your disposal, as well as tools and the capability to efficiently build links to your site that would otherwise be outside of your reach.

Be Honest – Is Your Business Worth Talking About?

In the last six months, did your business create anything that caused people to turn their heads and take notice? I mean a product, a piece of content, a video series, a service, or anything else at all? If you can’t honestly answer yes, then why would anybody want to link to you? Duke Cannon is a perfect (but crass) example of a company that gets this, and boy are they getting links for it. Forgive me for getting so basic, but we have to get this out of the way. Natural links go to businesses that are making people talk. Do that.

Ok, that’s out of the way.

Go Find The People Talking About You

Assuming you create some kind of buzz with your products or content, you’ll come across people talking about you. If you’re big, invest in social media monitoring like Trackur to see what they’re saying and where they’re saying it. If you’re just getting going, set up a few Google Alerts around your brand name and keywords. Stay on top of what they’re saying because you might want to reach out to one of them (I’ll give you a good example of how to do this in a minute). And also, you should be where they are. If people talk about you on Twitter, you need to be there too.

Contact Those People

When you come across that glowing review of your new product, promptly contact the author. Tell them you’re grateful they wrote the review, and be generous with your praise. They may have even linked to you in their review, but if not, find a nice way to ask them to. They already love what you do, so they’ll probably support you if you tell them how much a link would help you.

That’s a lot of time spent watching moving pictures! YouTube currently receives 48 hours of video uploaded every minute and serves 3 billion videos per day.

Google+ Hangouts are changing who is producing videos and how they’re being used. Once Google lifts the restrictions on how many can join a hangout, which I suspect is coming with business pages, we’ll see more video content being created. More than just pranks and idiots filming evidence for their next arrest.

There are several things that can help your videos attain more visibility. First think about where visibility happens: on the search engine results pages (Universal Search), YouTube (or wherever you’ve uploaded your video), blog embeds, etc. To get a wide range interest you need to consider a ton of factors.

Video SEO Ranking Factors

• Keywords in title
• Number of views
• Number of comments
• Category & Tags
• +1/Shares/Tweets/Embeds
• Favorites
• Ratings
• Sentiment (Like/Dislike ratio)
• Channel views
• Number of subscribers
• Links
• Embeds
• Video Sitemap
• Channel login activity
• Speed & consistency of interest
• Quality description (click-thru factor)
• Flags (negative)

Keywords in Title

This example shows that a lot has been left on the table in terms of what other words should have been used to describe this video based on terms people would use to find the video. For example: theory, statistics, analysis, etc.

Category & Tags

The category here is probably misplaced since most people don’t find trend and variation as entertaining. For us nerds, maybe it’s properly categorized. However, the tags here do a better job at targeting words that users will be searching.

Pro tip: I always recommend multiple variations on spelling. For example: statistics & stats

Views, Ratings, Comments & Favorites

You’ll see there are over 34,000 video views so there’s some obvious interest by the public. This is important to show that it could become wildly popular vs. a similar video with 100 views.

Ratings are favorable with a few dislikes so the sentiment could be described as positive. Having a positive sentiment is not always the strongest indicator for rankings but generally the more people like a video, the better chance it has in obtaining each of the important ranking factors.

Comments are marginally active. With 34,000 views, many videos would demand a few thousand comments but this varies considerably.

Favorites are pretty good with 148. Much like comments, not everybody interacts the same way with video. Since there are more than a handful, it’s easy to see there is interest in sharing or saving this video for later reference.

Significant Discovery Events

Notice here that Event A and Event B created a large spike in views, comments, and favorites in the above chart? This is critical to understand who is going to help you get noticed and will naturally increase rankings as a result of video views, ratings, comments, favorites, etc.

Don’t be afraid to lookup what publishers are embedding videos and reach out to them to either (a) ask what videos they need for upcoming stories or (b) what types of characteristics they like to see in videos they’re planning to embed. Create a relationship and provide great video content to writers on a deadline.

Types of Videos to Produce

• Identify which keywords return video results in the universal results pages of the search engines
• Product videos
• Events
• Interviews
• Journalistic storytelling
• Screenshot (demo) videos
• Tutorials
• Production lines
• How things are made
• Announcements

Zappos product videos help consumers get a better description of the products they’re interested in buying. Along with images, there’s a very quick video where you can see products from every angle, as though you’re standing in the room having a discussion with a personal shopper. This comes as part of a Zappos strategy to launch 50,000 product videos in 2010.

Keyword Research for Video

• Standard keyword research using Google Adwords Keyword Tool
• Related searches (both search engines and video sites)
• Suggest/Auto-Complete Terms (the terms that drop down as you’re typing a search query)
• YouTube Searches & Related
• Keywords from your social media friends
• Industry terms

Video XML Sitemaps

Customizing your video XML sitemap is going to require a little technical knowledge. Don’t be intimidated out of taking this important step. Hire help if you must. Research the basics, test and tweak as you go. Make sure you submit your video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools.

There is more to keyword research than just search volume and researching competitors. It is key to understand your customer base and their search behavior.  For example, there are many tools such as Google Insights and Google Trends that can help you better understand what’s trending and how searchers find your product or service. It may also be beneficial to conduct a survey to gain insight into how your customer makes a purchase decision.

As you are conducting keyword research and trying to find the best opportunities, there are some factors to consider when planning for long term success.  A search marketing strategy, like any business strategy should have both long and short term goals.  While every search marketing strategy should focus on profitability, there are other factors that help build the credibility of your brand. These factors are difficult to measure; however, if you consider the principles I’ve outlined below and take some time to better understand your consumer; it will greatly affect the results of your search marketing efforts.

Outlined here are the stages of the consumer research process when making a purchase decision.  The time from beginning to end of the cycle can vary greatly depending on the price and technicality of the product or service.

Awareness of a Need

This is the beginning of every purchase decision and can be stimulated by a need or want.  It could be as basic as being hungry and recognizing the need for food or could be created by an advertisement for the iPhone 4s.

Information Search

In this stage of the buyer decision process, it’s vital that your brand is at the forefront of your consumer’s minds, or at the forefront of where they will seek information (search engines).  This is the stage where consumers are doing the majority of their research. For example, if you are in the market to buy a point and shoot camera, you may conduct a general search for point and shoot cameras.  Conducting this search will help you in the information search phase and allow you to determine which brand of camera and what features are available.

Depending on your business and the resources available to you, you will want to develop a strategy to be visible for relevant search terms. This may include targeting keywords that will not generate a sale on the first visit.  Not only is it important to be visible for the keyword but it’s also important to understand where your customers go for information through searching Google or visiting review sites.

Evaluating Alternatives

At this stage your consumers are finished feeling out the market and have developed a consideration set.  Depending on the product and the industry, most consumers have a consideration set of about 3-5 different brands or products.

Purchase Decision 

Most SEO strategies try to catch consumers at this stage of the purchase process, as this represents the lowest hanging fruit.  However, if your business has not done due diligence up to this point, your brand or product will not be in the consideration set, therefore potentially ruining your chances of making a sale. To this point, if your brand has reached your consumer at each stage of the decision process your chances of making a sale are much higher.

Post Purchase 

At this stage of the decision process, you have the opportunity to continue your relationship with your customer. This is where your customers determine their satisfaction level of your product or service.  Here you have the opportunity to encourage your customers to write reviews on your business and turn them into repeat customers.  It is much easier to keep a customer than acquire a new one.

Once you’ve thought through the consumer research process for your business, it will help you better conduct keyword research, and help you determine the strategic moves you need to make to be visible to your consumer.  All stages of the purchase decision process are important, and it’s vital to have a strategy surrounding each stage of the process.  The majority of SEO strategies focus on the purchase decision phase, by the time the consumer is in that stage it may be too late. Your search marketing strategy can incorporate anything from retargeting, utilizing pay per click services, SEO or a combination.

As you can see, search marketing presents opportunities in all stages of the buying process. To have the most effective search marketing strategy that will lead to increased brand awareness and long term success of your business, it is advantageous to incorporate a wide range of keywords as well as other elements of search marketing that work best for your business.

Be informed:

Read the first few blog posts and the writer’s “about me” section. If the site has a search bar, see if the topics you are hoping to have posted about are in line with other content on the site. Be familiar enough with the blogger to personalize an email to them, and always address them by name. Nobody wants to get an email that begins with “Dear influential blogger” or “To whom it may concern.”

Make contact via email or social media:

Many bloggers work from home, and those with kids are not always in a position to take a phone call. Check the blogger’s “Contact Me” section, which should say their preferred method of contact. If a blogger doesn’t accept promotional content, it is often noted in this section. Some bloggers like contact initiated on Twitter or a Facebook fan page. Sending an email is often the most effective way to get a timely response.

Be concise:

Nobody likes to get a long-winded email, especially when it’s from somebody they don’t know. Be personal. Explain why your product or service is relevant to their blog’s topics/focus. Explain why you have specifically chosen this blogger to promote your product or service. Give a detailed explanation of what you are hoping to have the blogger post for you, and how soon you need it. If you plan to compensate the blogger with money or product trade, the initial email is a good time to do so.

Be prepared:

If you plan to ask a blogger to post guest content, have it ready to send. Don’t expect things to be done for free. Ask if they want to write their own content, or have it written for them. Create a contract that specifies what is expected of them, when it must be completed, and how they will be compensated.

Keep the door open:

Sometimes a blogger is very interested in the chance to connect with a brand or cause, but the specific pitch is not a good fit. If your pitch is declined, it’s appropriate to ask if they are interested in being contacted for other opportunities.  Because the bloggosphere is a tight-knit place, ask if they know another blogger who might be interested. There are many bloggers who are eager to begin creating a relationship with a brand, but just need an introduction.

With these tips in mind, create a base template for your first-contact email. I have a template that I begin almost every blog pitch with, and I add in details for the specific pitch and the recipient. The bloggers who respond and work with you often will be interested in future promotions. Approaching a blogger with a personal touch will yield the best results, and may lead to great guest blogging opportunities in the future.

When going through this process, it is essential you have a specific focus in mind. For instance, if you were looking to expand a university’s web presence you may want to expand into one category of keywords that every degree could fall under, such as “online.” Meaning that instead of just targeting “business degree” or “information systems degree,” you need to locate all of the best phrases that combine those terms with “online” or other similar types.

Remember that even though we are using the example of a university campaign, this idea can work with any campaign.

First, go into Webmaster Tools and export your two pieces of data:

Top Queries:

This can be done by clicking on Your site on the web > Search Queries as shown here:

Download the table and it will appear similar to this image:

Top Relevant Keywords:

This can be done by clicking on Your site on the web > Keywords as shown here:

Download the table and it will appear similar to this:

From there we can begin combining the two pieces of data. Since we already have the focus of “online” in mind, the first task is filtering with Excel to pull only those top queries that contain the term “online” within the phrase.

With a list of “subject focused phrases” you can now begin your combination process with the “top relevant terms.” Select a single “subject focused phrase” like accelerated bachelors degree online, attach it to a “top relevant term” like university or course. Using that one phrase, expand it into a relevant cluster of terms using the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

In doing this we accomplish our goal of establishing a list of phrases ideal in link building and content strategy, which helps create a stronger presence for the term “online.” The variation phrasing for each term like “accelerated bachelors degree,” will ensure that we are diverse in anchor text.

Overall Keyword Prioritization

Next, retrieve rankings for each term to begin prioritizing your campaign based on current marketing focuses and potential quick wins.

With a priority focus in place, create a short-term content and link building strategy (typically a three-to-six month strategy identifying types of links and content to target is best).

Previous Posts In The Series:

Post 1 - Building a Keyword List Based On Top Relevant Terms in Google Webmasters

Post 2 - Using Google Analytics for Long Tail Identification & Quick Wins

Next In The Series:

Post 4 – An Enterprise Approach To Keyword Prioritization & Targeting

Response Time

Although I am an Internet junkie and my cell phone bill will easily show you I use much more data than phone minutes, there are certain types of businesses where people will naturally opt to call first like plumbers, taxi service, restaurants, etc.  If your business type falls into this category, you must have the ability to pick up the phone every time, whether it be yourself, your internal staff or even an outside call answering service.  If you don’t pick up the phone, it doesn’t matter how high your website ranks or how much you paid for that yellow page ad because most people will move down the list to your competitors.

Take a minute to think about and answer:

• Do your customers prefer to call or email? Whatever their preference, are you set up to respond immediately?
• What percent of phone calls do you currently answer?
• What is your follow up time on emails or voicemails?

Communication Style

Last summer, I did a lot of research on local landscapers. As mentioned earlier, I am an Internet junkie which directly correlates to my lack of handyman skills.  After contacting 10-15 different businesses, I was really amazed by the responses I received.  While a landscaper’s communication style may not necessarily reflect the quality of work they perform, I was easily turned off by businesses who took a week to respond or gave us an uninformative, barely literate one line response.  As a business owner, I’m sure it can be frustrating to spend a lot of time responding to inquiries with no guarantee of gaining business but it’s something you need to be prepared for and try to streamline as much as possible.  Someone who takes the time to contact you and ask detailed questions is further along in the buying process and if you take the time to address their needs, you have a great shot at landing their business.

Take a minute to think about and answer:

• Does your communication style match that of your target customer?
• Does the communication and content on your website lead someone to want to contact you? How does your website site you apart from the other 10 competitors? (Hint: It’s not just a flashy design.)
• If you receive commonly asked questions and don’t always have time to write detailed answers, do you have common answers that can be sent back?
• If you offer high ticket items, does the detail and grammar of your response or website content, match the expectations of your customer?

There isn’t a guide for each business type that explains how you should communicate with your customers but take into account how they currently try to communicate with you and be honest with yourself on how well you respond both in timeliness and quality.  If you’re not sure, just ask them. Write a short, 5 question survey about the pre-sales process and have your customers fill it out.

For a local business, the ringing phone or filled out contact form is a crucial piece to your sales funnel.  Increase your sales, appointments, etc. by converting those people who are already contacting you, not just by getting more leads.