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		<title>102 Things I&#8217;ve Learned About Internet Marketing</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:27:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rebecca Babicz</dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[102 things I've learned about Internet Marketing]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing/">102 Things I&#8217;ve Learned About Internet Marketing</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/rebeccababicz/">Rebecca Babicz</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/102-Things-Ive-Learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="102 Things I&#039;ve Learned about Internet Marketing.fw" />Internet Marketing is an extremely new industry. Heck, Google is just 14 years old. So what does that mean about me and my two years working in this industry? It doesn’t make me ancient, but it sure doesn’t make me newbie either. Two years is a long time in SEO when you take into consideration [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing/">102 Things I&#8217;ve Learned About Internet Marketing</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/rebeccababicz/">Rebecca Babicz</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing/">102 Things I&#8217;ve Learned About Internet Marketing</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/rebeccababicz/">Rebecca Babicz</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/102-Things-Ive-Learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="102 Things I&#039;ve Learned about Internet Marketing.fw" /><h2>Internet Marketing is an extremely new industry.</h2>
<p>Heck, Google is just 14 years old. So what does that mean about me and my two years working in this industry? It doesn’t make me ancient, but it sure doesn’t make me newbie either. Two years is a long time in SEO when you take into consideration the rapid changes, algorithm updates and the evolution of social media. The learning curve also isn’t so steep when you have a dozen of go-to blogs you read on a daily basis, surround yourself with <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/the-state-of-seo-the-experts-weigh-in-part-i/">SEO experts</a> and attend Search Marketing and Social Media events with guest speakers like, Danny Sullivan, Rand Fishskin, Duane Forrester and Peter Shankman. With so much information out there, you would be foolish not to take advantage of it as a marketer.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve taken advantage of all of the free information out there and in an attempt to solidify what I’ve learned I started writing. And didn’t stop until I got to 102:</p>
<h2>Search Engine Optimization</h2>
<p>1. <strong>SEO isn’t dead; it’s evolving.</strong><br />
2. The lines between PR, SEO and social media are becoming blurred.<br />
3. SEO is a culmination of online marketing strategies that lets the search engines know you’re relevant, informative and worthy of being ranked.<br />
4. <strong>Google <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/rand-fishkininbound2012" target="_blank">wants to rank brands</a>; not websites.</strong><br />
5. It’s not about how pretty your website looks; <strong>it’s about how well your website converts visitors to paying customers.</strong><br />
6. Everything on your website that doesn’t contribute to your primary objective should be eliminated.<br />
7. <strong>Never stop A/B testing elements on your website.</strong> Doing your own A/B tests will give you data on what compels people to click and convert on your site.<br />
8. <strong>Don’t count out Bing.</strong> With Bing&#8217;s social search they might close in even more on <a href="http://www.neowin.net/news/bing-makes-gains-on-googles-market-share-in-december-2012" target="_blank">Google’s market share</a>.<br />
9. You should be tracking all of your online marketing campaigns through tracking URLs. (We can <a href="www.seo.com/services" target="_blank">help you </a>with this, by the way). The great thing about internet marketing is that <strong>everything is trackable.</strong><br />
10. <strong>Don’t get mad at Google.</strong> It’s easy to forget that they’re facilitating an immense amount of free traffic to websites every year. And the better they get at filtering out webspam, the more relevant legitimate sites like yours appear.<br />
11. Even though Google doesn’t look at page descriptions as a ranking factor; <strong>your page description is still important</strong> because it’s what compels users to CLICK on your search listings!<br />
12. Title tags, or the clickable links that show up on search results, are also really important. Limit them to 70 characters so the whole title will appear without getting cut off in Google or Twitter.<br />
13. <strong>Optimize all of your photos!</strong> This is one simple thing that most people don’t do. When you upload a photo fill out the “alternative text” and “title” with a brief description of the photo and a call-to-action that will appear when users mouse over the image. Naturally, your description should include keywords.<br />
14. <strong>Every single page on your website, and key content elements on those pages, should be shareable on the “Big 5”: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-14-No.-25-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_1.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-31860" alt="No. 14 No. 25 102 Things I've learned about Internet Marketing.fw" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-14-No.-25-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_1.png" width="870" height="522" /></a><br />
15. Besides the Big 5, <strong>keep an eye out for Tumblr and Instagram</strong>. Depending on your industry, these niche sites could be where you put the most of effort and time to reach a relevant audience.<br />
16. The 6 major “investment” areas for SEO are: crawlability, site structure, on-page optimization, content development, links and social media. – Duane Forrester at Salt Lake&#8217;s <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/slcsem/duane-forrester-of-bingcom-webmaster-tools-speaks-slcsem" target="_blank">Search Marketing Event</a>.<br />
17. <strong>Content isn’t everything;</strong> there’s still a lot more to SEO that simply involves technically optimizing your site and existing assets).</p>
<h2>Social Media</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No-18-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_2.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-31859" alt="No 18 102 Things I've learned about Internet Marketing.fw" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No-18-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_2.png" width="858" height="540" /></a></p>
<p>18. <strong>Engagement is the most important measure to track when it comes to social media.</strong> By keeping your followers engaged, they’ll know exactly where to go when the need arises.<br />
19. <strong>You can’t control what goes “viral.”</strong> There’s no formula for making content spread virally. All you can do is know your audience and try your best to engage them.<br />
20. <strong>It’s not about the amount of followers you have; it’s about how relevant your followers are.</strong><br />
21. “Everything you post, say, tweet or share on social media increases or decreases the credibility of your personal brand.” –Peter Shankman at Salt Lake’s <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/peter-shankman-utah-tips-business-social-brand/" target="_blank">Social Media Club event</a>.<br />
22. Sharing happiness is always good self promotion.<br />
23. Being helpful is the most important thing on social media. This applies to both your personal or business account.<br />
24. Social media rule of thumb: <strong>Listen before you speak. Don’t smother people. Earn some street cred before you engage in the conversation.</strong><br />
25. <strong>Don’t underestimate the power of your employees.</strong> They are the secret to creating great content and spreading that content socially to the right audience.<br />
26. <strong>Social signals do affect your SEO campaign directly.</strong> They’re a sign of “topical authority” according to Bing.<br />
27. Social signals remain only a few of the thousands of signals that <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/slcsem/duane-forrester-of-bingcom-webmaster-tools-speaks-slcsem" target="_blank">Bing uses to rank websites</a>. But they’re becoming more important every day and are here to stay.<br />
28. At SEO.com we’ve never bought followers, shares, tweets, etc. Buying followers might give you a quick win, but it’s not a long term strategy. If you think Facebook and Twitter can’t determine unnatural social patterns, you’re wrong.<br />
29. <strong>Social media’s <em>indirect</em> impact on rankings are more important than their direct impact.</strong> When you have people sharing your content, your brand is in front of new people. Plus, you’ll gain more qualified traffic to your website, repeat visitors and leads/sales.</p>
<h2>Images</h2>
<p>30. <strong>Don’t underestimate the power of images to drive traffic and sales.</strong> (How’s it going <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/hype-instagram-relevant-seo-branding-part-1/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/how-to-boost-your-traffic-with-pinnable-images/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a>?)<br />
31. Besides just Pinterest and Instagram, you also need awesome, engaging images for Google+ and Facebook.<br />
32. <strong>Images are the hook to your content; the first think people see on a page.</strong> Put some effort into them, and make them good.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-32-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-31852" alt="No. 32 102 Things I've learned about Internet Marketing.fw" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-32-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png" width="860" height="534" /></a><br />
33. Don’t forget about images on your product pages and blog posts. Visual cues help the reader digest written content and stay on the page longer.<br />
34. If you’re an eCommerce website, <strong>consider placing a “pin it” button on every single one of your products for Pinterest</strong>. It’s done wonders for <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/27/sephora-our-pinterest-followers-spend-15x-more-than-our-facebook-followers/" target="_blank">Sephora</a>.<br />
35. Place this link in your browser and replace “YourWebsite” with your website to see which of your images are on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite (or your competitors&#8230;)<br />
36. Pinterest just rolled out <a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34258/Pinterest-Launches-Free-Analytics-Tool-for-Business-Accounts.aspx" target="_blank">Analytics for their site</a>, in preparation to monetize. First you need to <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/how-to-setup-or-convert-to-a-pinterest-business-account/" target="_blank">verify your business account</a>. Switch to the new look. Click on the Anlaytics tab and viola!<br />
37. <strong>Pinterest boards rank in Google, not individual pins.</strong> Make your boards as specific as possible and add as much content that relates to that topic as you can.<br />
38. Pinterest and Instagram contests are great, <strong>but make sure your end goal is relevant followers</strong>; not just “new” followers.</p>
<h2>Google+</h2>
<p>39. <strong>Google+ is a great way to build your authority within your interests and expertise.</strong><br />
40. <strong>Google+ is a better way to engage with influencers in your industry than Facebook or Twitter.</strong> Adding a person you’ve never met on Facebook is creepy; circling them on G+ is not. Unlike Twitter you have more than 140 characters to get their attention.<br />
41. Google+ Communities are a great place to promote your work and grow your online network.<strong> (Take a look at our booming <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/1/communities/117391274848385876620" target="_blank">G+ Community</a>).</strong><br />
42. The fact that Google hasn’t given up on Google+ means that you shouldn’t give up either.<br />
43. <strong><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/how-to-make-authorship-part-of-your-content-marketing-strategy/" target="_blank">Google Authorship</a> is important, if you care about Google.</strong><br />
44. <span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">It’s important to build your</span><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"> </span><a style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/5-ways-to-build-your-google-author-rank-right-now/" target="_blank">Author Rank</a><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">. </span><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">Google is placing more emphasis on domain and page authority and the Google Authorship markup will help establish trust within your industry (and with Google). </span><br />
45. As YouTube, Google+ and Hangouts become more <a href="http://www.webpronews.com/google-launches-new-youtube-google-integration-2012-06" target="_blank">integrated</a>, don’t be surprised if Google+ capitalizes on YouTube&#8217;s user base for Google+&#8217;s benefit.</p>
<h2>Facebook</h2>
<p>46. <strong>Affinity, Interaction and Timeliness are the three scores that affect your <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/how-to-become-more-visible-on-facebooks-newsfeed/" target="_blank">Facebook EdgeRank score</a>.</strong> Not every single one of you posts (from your personal or business account) will reach all of your followers or friends.<br />
47. If Facebook is an outlet where you want to reach all of your fans, you’re going to have to cough up some cash and pay to promote posts. Facebook is a business and needs to make money too.<br />
48. Remember how quickly Facebook changed their site in the early years? Change is going to be constant. Facebook’s “Knowledge Graph” is in its early stages, expect quick and rapid updates that will make the search feature more useful. Also don’t expect Facebook to stop changing their Timeline layout.<br />
49. Facebook Knowledge Graph is currently not all that helpful for all industries because we don’t “like” everything on Facebook that we like in real life.<br />
50. <strong>The companies that can benefit from Knowledge Graph are in the entertainment, movies, TV, music, restaurant, travel, hotel and activities industries.</strong><br />
51. Just like you can optimize your website for Google, you can <a href="http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/optimize-your-facebook-page-for-facebook-graph-search/" target="_blank">optimize your Facebook page</a> for the Knowledge Graph.<br />
52. Sometimes people just want a good laugh, especially on Facebook. Instead of trying to sell them something, try to get them to laugh. The end result will be the same: engaging your audience with your brand.<br />
53. <strong>Pay close attention to what fans respond to.</strong> Duplicate and amplify your activity across those same lines.</p>
<h2>Twitter</h2>
<p>54. <strong>Tweet- Deck is the most effective way to use Twitter.</strong> It lets you organize your followers into lists. For example, at SEO.com we have lists for “competitors,” “influencers” and “engages with us.” For my personal twitter I have lists for “marketing,” “action sports” and “music.”<br />
55. <strong>All social media platforms are an extension of your customer service department.</strong> This is true especially for Twitter because of its instantaneous nature.<br />
56. It’s okay to post links to your blog a few times a day on Twitter. Understand that not all of your followers are paying attention to Twitter (or you) 24/7.<br />
57. Mix up the title of your tweets that link to blog posts. “5 Ways to Beat EdgeRank,” might not compel someone to click, but “The Best Content to Create for Facebook” might. As a rule of thumb, create at least 5 different tweets for the same blog post.</p>
<h2>Content</h2>
<p>58. Your content will matter more 6 months from now; not less. <strong>Content is becoming the center of gravity for online marketing.</strong><br />
59. If you ever get writer’s block, check your keyword research; you might be targeting a topic nobody wants to search or read about, which means you’re talking to an empty room.<br />
60. <strong>Create cool content that people want to share instead of &#8220;great&#8221; content that just fills up your site and social feeds.</strong> Utah based, Zagg is a good example of <a href="http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/e-commerce-blog-content-marketing" target="_blank">how to do just that</a>.<br />
61. You don’t need access to the journalist anymore: You are the journalist. Create great content and establish yourself as an authority.<br />
62. By creating great content and establishing yourself as an authority, you’ll build an army of people (your audience) who will spread your content for free.<br />
63. <strong>Timely blog posts around the holidays are effective.</strong> Who wouldn’t want to share a blog post about <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/5-ways-seos-say-i-love-you/" target="_blank">how SEOs say I love you on Valentine’s Day</a>?<br />
64. How Tos, Top 5/10/etc., Tips, Reviews, Definitive Guides and Top 102 lists <strong>(You’re already at 64!)</strong> are good ways to format blog content that’s scannable.<br />
65. <strong>Create clickable titles for the user, not for Google.</strong> Google is smart enough to understand how the content inside your blog post relates to your title.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-65-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-31854" alt="No. 65 102 Things I've learned about Internet Marketing.fw" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-65-102-Things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png" width="857" height="535" /></a><br />
66. Bloggers should take note, and act a little bit more like <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/5-things-bloggers-can-learn-from-kanye-west/" target="_blank">Kanye West</a>.<br />
67. Context (noun): The parts of a written or spoken statement that follow a specific work or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect. <strong>Context is everything in internet marketing.</strong><br />
68. <strong>Check your Google Analytics and see which of your blog posts perform well.</strong> There might be opportunity to update and re-publish them. (Like we did with <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/71-chrome-extensions-for-blogging-and-seo/" target="_blank">71 Chrome Extensions for Blogging &amp; SEO</a>).<br />
69. Slideshare is a great way to breathe new life into your best content by repurposing it in another format.<br />
70. <strong>Google can crawl Slide shares for links, which is why they can be a powerful part of your content/ link-building strategy.</strong><br />
71. We live in a digital world where a lot of information is re-packaged but in a different way. If you’re repurposing ideas, you better make them your own.<br />
72. When commenting on blog posts, G+ Communities, etc. actually adding to the conversation goes a lot farther than a simple, “good post.”<br />
73. <strong>Search engines REALLY DO respond to unique, useful content.</strong></p>
<h2>Link- Building</h2>
<p>74. Links that are the hardest to obtain directly will normally benefit you the most. High-value publications place hurdles to filter out low-quality tactics.<br />
75. <strong>Exact-match anchor text isn&#8217;t dead but <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/anchor-text-isnt-dead-but-its-on-a-feeding-tube/" target="_blank">it&#8217;s on a feeding tube</a>. </strong>Google is smart enough to understand what a link is about without using the exact phrase you want to rank within the link, and it may hurt your rankings if you keep hammering the same phrase over and over.<br />
76. <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/build-natural-links-existing-marketing-strategies-part-1/" target="_blank">Build links through already existing marketing strategies.</a><br />
77. Google Instant’s auto-complete feature is great for keyword research.</p>
<h2>Quora</h2>
<p>78. Quora is an underrated social platform.<br />
79. <strong>Quora is great for establishing your authority in a particular niche and answering questions that prospects might have which could lead to a backlink to your website.</strong><br />
80. Quora is also a great place to find content ideas. Look at the questions that people outside of your industry are asking. Pay attention to the language they use. Something that’s obvious to you, might not be so obvious to prospect. That’s why you’re the expert.<br />
81. Quora shows up on Bing results as a part of their social side-bar which gives you a huge opportunity to rank on the first page of Bing for particular search queries.<br />
82. <strong>Quora even pulls weight with Google.</strong> Unlike Bing, Google simply grabs from Quora what they feel is the single best answer, based on their algorithm for any questions you may ask.<br />
83. <strong>If you’re providing topic-relevant, keyword-rich questions people are asking on Quora, there’s a good chance you will show up in Bing and Google results, especially for long-tail keyword phrases.</strong></p>
<h2>Inbound Marketing Execution</h2>
<p>84. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.<br />
85. Use the language that your customers are using so you don’t lose prospects with jargon; especially in the SEO industry. No one wants to hear you geek out about “meta” keywords and canonical tags.<br />
86. <strong>We’re in the middle of a massive culture shift. Don’t get emotionally attached to tactics or platforms.</strong><br />
87. The ability to write, a once overlooked skill, is now one of the most important things a market can develop.<br />
88. Authenticity will always win in the long run; it trumps everything else you do.<br />
89. <strong>Don’t abuse sites like <a href="www.prweb.com">PRWeb.com</a></strong> for press releases unless you actually have something to announce. It’s only a matter of time before using press-release services as a link-building tactic will back fire.<br />
90. The same goes for infographics. Use them for social media, not as a link-building tactic, if you want to fool-proof your strategy.<br />
91. <a href="http://www.helpareporter.com/" target="_blank">Help A Reporter Out (HARO)</a>, is worth signing up for. It’s free, and if you keep up on it, you’ll find opportunities to be interviewed by a reporter about a query you reply to which could be featured in an editorial story.</p>
<h2>Mobile &amp; Local SEO</h2>
<p>92. <strong>People of the world are doing two things: they are becoming more social and more reliant on their smartphones. Don’t ignore the mobile space.</strong><br />
93. <strong>One key to ranking well locally is to have your business address citation (also known as the NAP- name, address, phone number) added to your website and have this citation appear with the same unique information on multiple sites across the web.</strong><br />
94. Another key to local SEO is receiving high- quality reviews from customers on sites like Yelp, City Search, Google+ Local and Angie’s list.<br />
95. Google+ Local is also a big key to the local SEO game and showing up on mobile results for users in your geographic area.<br />
96.<strong> Mobile user intent is very different than desktop user intent.</strong> How are people using their mobile device to search for your product? Think backwards, from search to site, when crafting mobile SEO and PPC campaigns.<br />
97. <strong>Google OWNS mobile search.</strong> Look at what happened when Apple released <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/20/apple-map-fails-ios-6-maps_n_1901599.html" target="_blank">Apple Maps</a>.<br />
98. Mobile ads are just getting started. Expect to be dished ads based on your location even more in the future.<br />
99. <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/the-definitive-guide-for-mobile-website-optimization/" target="_blank">Mobile SEO</a> should no longer be an afterthought. By 2015, 2 billion people worldwide are expected to own smartphones and Mobile local search is predicted to surpass local desktop search by 2015.<br />
100. A responsive website design is not always the best for mobile. It depends on the purpose of your website.<br />
101. <strong>Things don’t happen overnight. There’s no quick and easy way to gain a following on Twitter or rank #1 in Google. Internet marketing is a marathon; not a sprint.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-101-102-things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png"><img class=" wp-image-31857 aligncenter" alt="No. 101 102 things I've learned about Internet Marketing.fw" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/No.-101-102-things-Ive-learned-about-Internet-Marketing.fw_.png" width="530" height="859" /></a><br />
102. <strong>Companies like SEO.com exist because Internet Marketing is a big mountain for your company to climb on its own. With support from an agency, you&#8217;ll have the ability to reach new heights.</strong></p>
<p>What are some quick tips you&#8217;ve learned about Internet Marketing that you would add to the list? Leave me a comment and let me know if you would like me to go into further detail.</p>
<p><iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/17516695" width="427" height="356" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border:1px solid #CCC;border-width:1px 1px 0;margin-bottom:5px" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen> </iframe>
<div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/seocom/102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing" title="102 things I&#39;ve Learned about Internet Marketing" target="_blank">102 things I&#39;ve Learned about Internet Marketing</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/seocom" target="_blank">SEO.com</a></strong> </div>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/102-things-ive-learned-about-internet-marketing/">102 Things I&#8217;ve Learned About Internet Marketing</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/rebeccababicz/">Rebecca Babicz</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>13 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of For 2013 &#8211; Video</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:49:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Darin Berntson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tips]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[2013 marketing predictions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[author rank]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Search Engine Optimization]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[video infographics]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.seo.com/?p=30625</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013/">13 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of For 2013 &#8211; Video</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="13 predictions you should be aware of for 2013" />2013 Is Here&#8230; Is Your Search Marketing Strategy Ready? From multiple Panda and Penguin updates, and the exact match domain crack down, 2012 turned out to be quite a stunning year in the world of search engine optimization. In this video, Ash Buckles, President of SEO.com will briefly highlight 13 predictions you should be aware [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013/">13 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of For 2013 &#8211; Video</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013/">13 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of For 2013 &#8211; Video</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="13 predictions you should be aware of for 2013" /><h2>2013 Is Here&#8230; Is Your Search Marketing Strategy Ready?</h2>
<p>From multiple Panda and Penguin updates, and the exact match domain crack down, 2012 turned out to be quite a stunning year in the world of search engine optimization.</p>
<p>In this video, <strong><a href="http://www.seo.com/author/ashbuckles/" target="_blank">Ash Buckles</a>, President of SEO.com</strong> will briefly highlight 13 predictions you should be aware of for 2013</p>
<p><iframe width="670" height="377" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vIssXIOxiMk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<h2>Topics Covered In This Video:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Author Rank</li>
<li>Co-occurrance</li>
<li>Facebook Edgerank</li>
<li>Local SEO</li>
<li>Google+ Communities</li>
<li>Link Earning</li>
<li>Link Removal</li>
<li>Mobile Search</li>
<li>Site SEO &amp; Page SEO</li>
<li>Social Signals</li>
<li>Repurposed Content and Video Infographics</li>
</ul>
<p>It will be interesting to see how Ash&#8217;s predictions stack up this time next year.</p>
<p>What do you think 2013 will bring to the world of SEO? What will the all mighty Google do next? Will other search engines finally rise to the occasion?</p>
<p>I&#8217;d love to hear from you in the comments or questions in the comment section below.</p>
<p>Until next time&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>PS:</strong> To get even more information, you should check out this blog post: <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-tips-for-2013-author-rank-cooccurrence-and-more/" target="_blank">SEO Tips for 2013: Author Rank, Co-occurrence and More</a></p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/13-predictions-you-should-be-aware-of-for-2013/">13 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of For 2013 &#8211; Video</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[13 Predictions You Should Be Aware Of For 2013 - Video - SEO.com]]></media:title>
			<media:description type="html"><![CDATA[In this video, Ash Buckles, President of SEO.com will briefly highlight 13 predictions you should be aware of for 2013 in the world of search marketing]]></media:description>
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			<media:keywords>2013 marketing predictions,author rank,co-occurance,facebook edgerank,Google panda update,google+ communities,infographics,ling removal,link earning,local seo,mobile search,page seo,Penguin update,repurpose content,Search Engine Optimization,seo,site seo,Social Media,social signals,video infographics,Basic,Blog,Learn,SEO,SEO Tips,Social Media</media:keywords>
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		<title>SEO Crash Course: 3-Part Video Series</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:15:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Darin Berntson</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Basic]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[seo course]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.seo.com/?p=29895</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/">SEO Crash Course: 3-Part Video Series</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SEO-Crash-Course-3-Part-Video-Series.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="SEO Crash Course 3-Part Video Series" />Hubspot Teams Up With SEO.com For FREE SEO Crash Course Video Training From SEO basics to advanced strategies, this 3-part video series has it all. &#62;&#62; Enroll In The Crash Course TODAY Search engine optimization is a critical part to any business marketing strategy, and it is important to keep up to date with all [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=learn&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Learn-Exactly-What-SEO-can-do-for-your-business-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Learn Exactly What SEO can do for your business - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/">SEO Crash Course: 3-Part Video Series</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/">SEO Crash Course: 3-Part Video Series</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SEO-Crash-Course-3-Part-Video-Series.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="SEO Crash Course 3-Part Video Series" /><h2>Hubspot Teams Up With SEO.com For FREE SEO Crash Course Video Training</h2>
<h3>From SEO basics to advanced strategies, this 3-part video series has it all.</h3>
<h2><a href="http://offers.hubspot.com/seo-crash-course?source=hscm-s-e-com-crash-course-20121113" target="_blank">&gt;&gt; Enroll In The Crash Course TODAY</a></h2>
<p>Search engine optimization is a critical part to any business marketing strategy, and it is important to keep up to date with all of the changes happening with the Google algorithm, as well as other search engines.</p>
<p>If you want to be found online, you must be aware of all the critical steps that will help your business succeed.</p>
<p><strong>IN THIS COURSE YOU WILL LEARN:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong><span style="color: #ff6600;">Introductory:</span> How to improve on-page SEO<br />
</strong>Featuring <a href="http://www.seo.com/author/rebeccababicz/">Rebecca Babicz </a></li>
<li><strong><span style="color: #ff6600;">Intermediate:</span> How Social Media Impacts SEO<br />
</strong>Featuring <a href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin &#8220;Doc&#8221; Berntson </a></li>
<li><strong><span style="color: #ff6600;">Advanced:</span> Deep Dive Into Google&#8217;s Algorithm Changes<br />
</strong>Featuring <a href="http://www.seo.com/author/pvandyke/">Preston Van Dyke </a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>WHO SHOULD ENROLL?</strong><br />
Business owners and marketing professionals wanting to learn more about SEO</p>
<p><a href="http://offers.hubspot.com/seo-crash-course?source=hscm-s-e-com-crash-course-20121113" target="_blank"><img class="alignnone size-large wp-image-29900" title="SEO Crash Course Video Series" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SEO-Crash-Course-Video-Series-Graphic-500x1024.jpg" alt="Enroll Today" width="500" height="1024" /></a></p>
<h2>Embed our SEO Crash Course Infographic:</h2>
<p><textarea rows="6" cols="80" width=”100%” name="largeimage" onClick="this.select();"><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/"><img src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/SEO-Crash-Course-Video-Series-Graphic-500x1024.jpg" alt="SEO Crash Course – 3-Part Video Series - Infographic "width="width="500" height="1024" border="0" /></a></textarea></p>
<p><strong>We are thrilled to be a part of this SEO crash course video series with Hubspot.</strong></p>
<p>Each course has a short video that is delivered via email each week. You will also receive some great action items, best practices, and additional resources from Hubspot.</p>
<p><strong>What are you waiting for?</strong></p>
<h2><a href="http://offers.hubspot.com/seo-crash-course?source=hscm-s-e-com-crash-course-20121113" target="_blank">&gt;&gt; Click Here To Enroll In The Crash Course TODAY!!</a></h2>
<p>When you have completed the course, or any time before then, we would love to get your feedback in the comments below.</p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=learn&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Learn-Exactly-What-SEO-can-do-for-your-business-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Learn Exactly What SEO can do for your business - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/seo-crash-course-3-part-video-series/">SEO Crash Course: 3-Part Video Series</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/doc/">Darin Berntson</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[SEO Crash Course Video Series]]></media:title>
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		<title>Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:02:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kevin W. Phelps</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tools]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits/">Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Auditing-Your-Link-Building-Portfolio-BEFORE-Google’s-Over-Optimization-Penalty-Hits.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits" />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 [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits/">Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits/">Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Auditing-Your-Link-Building-Portfolio-BEFORE-Google’s-Over-Optimization-Penalty-Hits.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits" /><p>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 <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/6-changes-every-seo-should-make-before-the-over-optimization-penalty-hits-whiteboard-friday">6 basic changes every SEO should make before Google’s new algorithm is rolled out</a>. As always, Google is very vague about what changes they’re going to make which leaves us with many unknowns and <a href="http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seven-over-optimization-penalty-what-ifs-are-you-ready-for-these/42410/">what ifs</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Six Red Flags to Look for in your Link Portfolio</h2>
<p>To review these six flags, you’re going to want to look at your <a href="http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/">OpenSiteExplorer.org</a> link data. Once your data has loaded, review the following steps, as they are the most used, manipulated and abused.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Exact-Match Anchor Text:</strong><br />
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.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">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.</p>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-25342 aligncenter" title="ose data" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ose-data.png" alt="" width="594" height="363" /><strong></strong></li>
<li><strong>Linking from Questionable Sources: </strong><br />
Look through your links and identify any links pages, foreign pages or adult websites. If you’ve hired a rogue SEO company <a href="../../../../../blog/seo-pay/">instead of a reputable one</a>, 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.</li>
<li><strong>Mass Article Networks/Directories:<img class="alignright size-full wp-image-25346" title="excel pic" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/excel-pic.png" alt="" width="290" height="277" /></strong><br />
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 <a href="http://www.buildmyrank.com/news/its-been-a-great-run">deindex BuildMyRank.com</a>’s network and many others. Hopefully these two link building techniques haven’t been your priority.<strong><br />
</strong></li>
<li><strong>Distribution of Links Across Pages:</strong><br />
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.<strong></strong></li>
<li><strong>Consistent Domain/Page Authority of Backlinks:</strong><br />
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.<strong></strong></li>
<li><strong>Frequency of Link Building:</strong><br />
This audit requires the use of <a href="http://www.majesticseo.com/reports/compare-domain-backlink-history">Majestic SEO’s backlink history checker</a>, 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.</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-25349 aligncenter" title="majestic" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/majestic.png" alt="" width="585" height="179" /><strong><br />
</strong></p>
<h2>Link Building Methods That Caused This<img class="alignright size-full wp-image-25350" title="blackhat" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/blackhat.png" alt="" width="189" height="126" /></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Article Spinning:</strong><br />
{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}.</p>
<p>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.<strong></strong></li>
<li><strong>Article Networks:</strong><br />
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.</li>
<li><strong>Links Pages: </strong><br />
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.</li>
<li><strong></strong><strong>Reciprocal Linking:</strong><br />
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.</li>
<li><strong>Link Purchasing:</strong><br />
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 <a href="../../../../../blog/seo-jcpenney-disaster/">JCPenney</a>, we haven’t forgotten.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Link Building that Actually Helps your Link Portfolio<img class="alignright size-full wp-image-25351" title="whitehat" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/whitehat.png" alt="" width="206" height="171" /></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Guest Blog Posting:</strong><br />
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! <a href="http://myblogguest.com/">MyBlogGuest.com</a>, <a href="http://www.guestblogposter.com/">GuestBlogPoster.com</a> and <a href="http://www.bloggerlinkup.com/">BloggerLinkUp.com</a> are three excellent places to start building your brand, name and links.</li>
<li><strong>Infographics/Viral Pieces:</strong><br />
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 <a href="http://www.infographichub.com/">InfographicHub.com</a> and <a href="http://visualoop.tumblr.com/">VisialLoop</a> and typically, those types of websites will even spread your content on social sites.</li>
<li><strong>Building Tools:</strong><br />
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?</li>
<li><strong>Press Releases:</strong><br />
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 <a href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=press+release+distribution">give it a quick search</a>. 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.</li>
<li><strong>Social Media:</strong><br />
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 <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/want-guest-post-links-find-them-via-twitter-tool">Ethan Lyon’s post</a> 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 <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/scalable-link-building-using-social-media-whiteboard-friday">Whiteboard Friday</a> on the topic for more ideas.</li>
</ol>
<p>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.</p>
<p>I know there are other link building methods out there that work, and that the search engines will actually like. <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Don’t just close this tab in your browser</span></strong>, comment below and tweet <a href="http://twitter.com/seocom" target="_blank">@seocom</a> while using the hashtag #WhiteHatTips and share your favorite white-hat link building method and I’ll credit your advice in this blog post.</p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/auditing-link-building-portfolio-googles-overoptimization-penalty-hits/">Auditing Your Link Building Portfolio BEFORE Google’s Over-Optimization Penalty Hits</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:17:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Claye Stokes</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python/">Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/cstokes/">Claye Stokes</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Tutorial-How-to-Get-Google-Webmaster-Tools-Data-on-Windows-With-Python.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python" />The Search Query report in Google Webmaster tools is more important than ever, with the ominous (not provided) mask hiding 25%-40% of referring keyword traffic in Google Analytics. Google recently made WMT data available through an open source Python Library, making it easy to transfer that data straight into Google Docs or to your desktop, [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python/">Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/cstokes/">Claye Stokes</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python/">Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/cstokes/">Claye Stokes</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><img width="670" height="260" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Tutorial-How-to-Get-Google-Webmaster-Tools-Data-on-Windows-With-Python.jpg" class="attachment-post-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python" /><p>The Search Query report in Google Webmaster tools is more important than ever, with the ominous (not provided) mask hiding 25%-40% of referring keyword traffic in Google Analytics. Google <a href="http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/12/download-search-queries-data-using.html">recently made WMT data available</a> through an open source Python Library, making it easy to transfer that data straight into Google Docs or to your desktop, but setup and configuration isn&#8217;t easy for most.</p>
<p>To make it a little easier to access that data, I&#8217;ll walk you through the beginners steps to get search queries from Google Webmaster Tools using the <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/articles/python_client_lib.html">Google Data Python Library</a> on Windows. Expect this to take at least 15 minutes.</p>
<h2>1. Download and install Python</h2>
<p><img class="size-full wp-image-24816 alignright" title="python-logo" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/python-logo.gif" alt="Python Logo" width="211" height="71" />First, download the Windows Installer from the <a href="http://python.org/download/">Python.org official download page</a>. At the time of writing, you&#8217;ll want the &#8220;<strong>Python 2.7.2 Windows Installer (Windows binary &#8212; does not include source)</strong>.&#8221; If you have a 64-bit machine, make sure you select the &#8220;<strong>X86-64 Installer</strong>.&#8221; Once downloaded, open it up and follow the installation wizard. I recommend choosing default settings if you&#8217;re a beginner but feel free to customize if you know what you&#8217;re doing.</p>
<p>Installing with default settings will install Python in the <em>C:Python27</em> directory. You don&#8217;t need to touch anything in there yet.</p>
<h2>2. Download and extract the Google Data APIs Client Library for Python.</h2>
<p><a href="http://code.google.com/p/gdata-python-client/downloads/list">Download the latest Google Data API Client Library</a> in .zip or .tar.gz format (recommended if you use WinRar or 7zip), depending on your preference, and extract the contents to the <em>C:Python27</em> folder.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24802" title="right-click-extract" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/right-click-extract.png" alt="Right Click and Select Extract All" width="267" height="260" /></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24795" title="destination-extract-settings" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/destination-extract-settings.png" alt="Extract Destination settings should extract the file to the Python27 folder" width="628" height="460" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>That will place the zipped &#8220;gdata-2.0.16&#8243; folder in your <em>C:Python27</em> folder, as follows: <em>C:Python27gdata-2.0.16 </em>, which should contain the following contents:</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24806" title="extract-results" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/extract-results.png" alt="Extract results will have these contents" width="192" height="226" /></p>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT</strong>: Now, you need to copy ALL the contents of the <em>gdata-2.0.16 </em>folder and paste them straight into the <em>Python27 </em>folder. You will probably get a popup saying that the README file already exists &#8211; you can  replace it, or skip it, you don&#8217;t really need either unless you enjoy the literary merits of README files.</p>
<p><a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/articles/python_client_lib.html">Read more</a> about the Google Data APIs Python Client Library.</p>
<h2>3. Install the Google Data API Client Library</h2>
<p>Now it gets fun &#8211; it&#8217;s time to fire up your Windows Command Prompt by finding it in your &#8220;Accessories&#8221; folder, or by pressing Windows+R, typing &#8220;cmd&#8221; and hitting &#8220;Enter.&#8221;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24807" title="command-prompt" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/command-prompt.png" alt="The Windows Command Prompt is in the Accessories folder" width="278" height="194" /></p>
<ul>
<li>Navigate into the C:Python27 folder by typing &#8220;<strong>cd Python27</strong>&#8221; without quotes.<br />
<em>&#8220;cd&#8221; is short for &#8220;change directory,&#8221; which is how to move from one folder (directory) to another from the command line.<br />
</em><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24793" title="cd-command-line" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/cd-command-line.png" alt="Use the cd command to move to the python27 folder in the root C directory" width="589" height="299" /></li>
<li>Now that you&#8217;re in the <em>Python27</em> folder, type &#8220;<strong>python ./setup.py install</strong>&#8221; without quotes, which will install the client library. If you start seeing hundreds of scrolling lines, you&#8217;ve done everything correctly to this point.<br />
<img class="size-full wp-image-24794 alignnone" title="cd-python-install" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/cd-python-install.png" alt="Type the command above to install the Data API Script" width="589" height="299" /></li>
<li>(optional) Now you can start playing around with the sample scripts that came with the Data API Library &#8211; <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/articles/python_client_lib.html#running">here is some information on how to do that</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2>4. Create a &#8216;wmt&#8217; folder, and set up scripts</h2>
<ul>
<li>Create a folder in the <em>Python27</em> folder called <em>wmt</em>, so that it can be found at <em>C:Python27wmt</em></li>
<li>Download and place the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/webmaster-tools-downloads/source/browse/downloader.py">downloader.py script</a> in the new <em>wmt </em>folder (either copy the code from that page into a new file and save it as downloader.py, or right click the &#8220;view raw file&#8221; link on that page and save it to the folder).</li>
<li>Download and place the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/webmaster-tools-downloads/source/browse/example-create-spreadsheet.py">example-create-spreadsheet.py</a> script to the <em>wmt</em> folder, and right click the file and select &#8220;Edit with IDLE&#8221;</li>
</ul>
<div><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24803" title="right-click-open-idle" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/right-click-open-idle.png" alt="Right click and select Edit with IDLE" width="326" height="188" /></div>
<div></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li>Find the highlighted fields and replace them with your Webmaster Tools user credentials and website, then save (Ctrl+s):</li>
<ul>
<li>email</li>
<li>password</li>
<li>website</li>
</ul>
</ul>
</div>
<div><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24810" title="code-edit" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/code-edit.png" alt="Edit these values" width="441" height="284" /></div>
<div></div>
<h2></h2>
<h2>5. Open the command line and start getting Search Query reports</h2>
<p>Now that <em>C:Python27wmtexample-create-spreadsheet.py</em> has been updated with your website of choice, along with your Webmaster Tools username and password, open your Command Line prompt, (make sure you&#8217;re still working in the C:Python27 directory), and type in this command:</p>
<ul>
<li>python ./wmt/example-create-spreadsheet.py</li>
</ul>
<p>After several seconds you will see a message that says &#8220;Spreadsheet now accessible online at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/&#8230;.,&#8221; and you can access the CSV file at that URL or by logging into Google Docs!</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it!</p>
<p>If you would rather download it directly to your desktop rather than transferring the data to Google Docs, use <a href="http://code.google.com/p/webmaster-tools-downloads/source/browse/example-simple-download.py">example-simple-download.py</a> instead.</p>
<h2>6. Handy tip</h2>
<p>The <em>example-create-spreadsheet.py</em> code provided for Google is great if you consistently pull search query data from only one website, but if you&#8217;re like me and you need to easily pull reports for multiple websites, I recommend downloading my modified version:  <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/129694/sq-report.py">sq-report.py</a> (right click-&gt;Save as&#8230;). Everything is the same except for the website field, which you can now call from the command line like so:</p>
<p>python ./wmt/sq-report.py <strong>http://www.seo.com/</strong></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24811" title="custom-script" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/custom-script.png" alt="Custom Script" width="476" height="35" /></p>
<p>Replace <strong>http://www.seo.com/</strong> with any website your Webmaster Tools account has access to &#8211; and don&#8217;t forget to edit the sq-report.py file with your username and password.</p>
<p>Now you can easily pull a report for any site you have access to, without editing the Python file every time!</p>
<h2>7. Conclusion</h2>
<p>I will follow up with instructions for automating this every month for compiling historic data, as Google Webmaster Tools only provides the past 30 days of data.</p>
<p>I hope this is helpful for the average Windows user who may find it trick to install and work with Python code, let me know how it goes and if you run into problems, <a href="http://twitter.com/claye">contact me on Twitter</a> or in the comments so I can help you troubleshoot.</p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/tutorial-google-webmaster-tools-data-windows-python/">Tutorial: How to Get Google Webmaster Tools Data on Windows With Python</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/cstokes/">Claye Stokes</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[extract-results]]></media:title>
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			<media:description type="html"><![CDATA[Type the command above to install the Data API Script]]></media:description>
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		<title>4 SEO Personalities Essential to a Team</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:33:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Preston Van Dyke</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO Tips]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo personality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo specialist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo speciality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo tasks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.seo.com/?p=17125</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/">4 SEO Personalities Essential to a Team</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/pvandyke/">Preston Van Dyke</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p>Everyone who has worked in a team environment has experienced the group of people that seems to jive so well and simply get things done. While there are certain skills that must be had in any team no matter the industry—like project management for instance—in SEO there are four who can take a team further [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/">4 SEO Personalities Essential to a Team</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/pvandyke/">Preston Van Dyke</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/">4 SEO Personalities Essential to a Team</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/pvandyke/">Preston Van Dyke</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p>Everyone who has worked in a team environment has experienced the group of people that seems to jive so well and simply get things done. While there are certain skills that must be had in any team no matter the industry—like project management for instance—in SEO there are four who can take a team further quicker than if one were missing. Let me lead the explanation of these <em>essential personalities</em> by mentioning, while each person may be better or more skilled in their specific genre of SEO, the best team is one where each member has a fair grasp of all four approaches.</p>
<h3><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/attachment/3234536_hires/" rel="attachment wp-att-17429"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17429" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/3234536_HiRes-184x250.jpg" alt="Technical SEO Personality" width="184" height="250" /></a>Technical SEO</h3>
<p>First are our technical junkies. Understanding the technical implications in <a href="http://www.seo.com">search engine optimization</a> are essential. While every SEO should have a sound knowledge in HTML and CSS, having a specialist who can walk a client through the quickest implementation of structural changes to a website, no matter the CMS or server, can really benefit a campaign.</p>
<p>It is also often the technical eye that catches elements both <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/on-page-optimization/groomed-website/">structural and on-page</a> that can have a dramatic effect on a campaign&#8217;s progress.</p>
<p>These are the specialists who have a strong grasp of server languages (PHP and ASP), all common content management systems, shopping cart platforms and how search engines interact with a web page.</p>
<p>Typical degrees that breed a technical SEO are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Information Systems</li>
<li>Computer Science</li>
<li>Digital Media</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/attachment/3234573_hires/" rel="attachment wp-att-17430"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17430" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/3234573_HiRes-185x250.jpg" alt="Creative SEO Personality" width="185" height="250" /></a>Creative SEO</h3>
<p>Second are the outside-of-the-box personalities. These gems are great at envisioning how a campaign can not only serve organic marketing purposes, but can cohesively work with public relations, social media, B2B and other marketing fronts for a business to get the best bang for its buck. This foresight is also amazing for branding purposes.</p>
<p>The best SEO is backed by an amazing content marketing strategy. Whether that content consists of link-bait (contests, infographics, etc.), tools or plain old copy, a creatively strong SEO will assist in devising a campaign to create a genuine voice and attract a major audience.</p>
<p>Typical degrees a creative SEO will have include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Journalism</li>
<li>Public Relations</li>
<li>Web Design</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/attachment/3234595_hires/" rel="attachment wp-att-17431"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17431" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/3234595_HiRes-185x250.jpg" alt="Link Acquisition SEO Personality" width="185" height="250" /></a>Link Acquisition SEO</h3>
<p>Link building is nearly an every day function for any SEO, but there are certainly those individuals who just seem to have a knack for it. Typically, they know their way around a spreadsheet, have discovered the best and quickest ways of aggregating data, know how to exploit needs and build quality relationships. Last but not least, they work hard.</p>
<p>Link building is not easy. It takes a lot of work, a lot of patience and a pinch of genius. While you have your creative SEO drumming up the best content strategy, the link-building specialist is going above and beyond in direct outreach—utilizing business partnerships, fans and followers, geographic implications and  competitive analysis to acquire top-of-the-line links.</p>
<p>The link-acquisition SEO most commonly comes from:</p>
<ul>
<li>Marketing</li>
<li>Business Management</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/attachment/3236075_hires/" rel="attachment wp-att-17474"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-17474" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/3236075_HiRes-187x250.jpg" alt="Analytical SEO" width="187" height="250" /></a></p>
<h3>Analytical SEO</h3>
<p>Finally, the analysis addict. Turning web analytics into actionable information is key to any SEO campaign.</p>
<p>A statistics and data-driven SEO is one who understands how to interpret information. They are keen on processing cause-and-effect theories quickly and have no problem manipulating data sets in the analytics suite or on a spreadsheet.</p>
<p>This specialty is helpful when looking to prove the benefit of a campaign. Consistently <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/building-tracking-urls-google-analytics/">tracking and evaluating a campaign&#8217;s</a> reach keeps an SEO team shining to its clients when things are going well and responsive when things need to  improve.</p>
<p>Typical degrees analytical SEOs have include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Statistics (of course)</li>
<li>Computer Science</li>
<li>Marketing</li>
</ul>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/4-seo-personalities-essential-campaign/">4 SEO Personalities Essential to a Team</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/pvandyke/">Preston Van Dyke</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>9</slash:comments>
	
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[Technical SEO Personality]]></media:title>
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[Creative SEO Personality]]></media:title>
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[Link Acquisition SEO Personality]]></media:title>
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		</media:content>
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			<media:title type="html"><![CDATA[Analytical SEO]]></media:title>
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		<title>33 Ways to Measure Your Online Competition</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/measure-online-competition/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=measure-online-competition</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/measure-online-competition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 14:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kevin W. Phelps</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Competitive Analysis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keyword competitiveness]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.seo.com/?p=13697</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/measure-online-competition/">33 Ways to Measure Your Online Competition</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p>Brand new websites with huge ambitions often go after the big fish keyword when, in reality, they are sitting in a rusty, row boat with a wooden stick for a fishing pole. Sure it’s possible to reach your goal with your elementary resources, nonexistent tools and skewed understanding of how to catch that big fish, [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/measure-online-competition/">33 Ways to Measure Your Online Competition</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/measure-online-competition/">33 Ways to Measure Your Online Competition</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><img class="alignright size-large wp-image-13716" title="homestar-fishing" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/homestar-fishing-1024x819.png" alt="" width="350" /></p>
<p>Brand new websites with huge ambitions often go after the <em>big fish</em> keyword when, in reality, they are sitting in a rusty, row boat with a wooden stick for a fishing pole.</p>
<p>Sure it’s <em>possible</em> to reach your goal with your elementary resources, nonexistent tools and skewed understanding of how to catch that big fish, but it isn’t likely. If you want to go after keywords that will provide a big return, do your research and invest in the right tools and resources. When you are contemplating pursuing that trophy keyword, you might want to take an in-depth look at your competitors to determine if you really measure up.</p>
<p>For this example, I used 3 simple tools: <a href="http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/">OpenSiteExplorer.org</a>, <a href="http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html">SEO for Firefox</a> and the essential Ctrl+F key. Then, I chose one of the most competitive online industries I could think of, online education. You see, when you search for &#8220;online education” or “online degrees,” there is a plethora of companies out there doing SEO for these keywords, which makes everything extremely difficult to rank. In this example, we’ll use the keyword “online degrees.”</p>
<h2>Key Factors When Comparing Your Website to a Competitor</h2>
<p><strong>For the top 10 competitors that rank for this money-making term, I gathered their:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>PageRank </li>
<li>Domain Age</li>
<li>Page Authority</li>
<li>Domain Authority</li>
<li>Linking Root Domains</li>
<li>Total Number of Links</li>
<li>Number of Indexed Pages</li>
<li>Best of the Web Listing</li>
<li>Yahoo Directory Listing</li>
<li>10 Most Used Anchor Text</li>
<li>Number of Root Domains and Individual Pages Linking with &#8220;Online Degrees&#8221;</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>I then analyzed their on-site content and looked to see if they included the keyword in the:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Title Tag</li>
<li>Meta Description</li>
<li>Body of Text</li>
<li>Navigation</li>
<li>Domain Name</li>
</ul>
<h2>Finding Averages and Percentages from Gathered Data</h2>
<p>To compete for the keyword &#8220;online degrees,&#8221; you need to have a similar website, backlink profile and other data to be included in those top 10 positions. To do this, I found the averages and percentages from all that data I collected above. Below is what I found:</p>
<ul>
<li>The average website PageRank is 6.</li>
<li>The average domain age is from 2001.</li>
<li>The average page authority is 73.</li>
<li>The average domain authority is 68. </li>
<li>The average amount of linking root domains is 1595.</li>
<li>The average amount of total backlinks is 29642.</li>
<li>The average amount of Best of the Web links is 2.</li>
<li>The average amount of Yahoo Directory links is 14.</li>
<li>70% of the websites had a “natural looking” backlink profile. ***</li>
<li>60% of the websites had “Online Degrees” as one of the top 10 most used anchor texts.</li>
<li>The average amount of root domains linking to a website with “Online Degrees” is 64.</li>
<li>The average amount of pages linking to a website with “Online Degrees” is 290.</li>
<li>90% of the websites had the keyword within their title tag.</li>
<li>90% of the websites had the keyword within their meta description.</li>
<li>The average number of occurrences of the keyword within the text was 7 times.</li>
<li>40% of the websites had the keyword as a link within their navigation.</li>
<li>30% of the websites had the keyword within their actual domain name.</li>
</ul>
<p>***I determined a natural backlink profile by looking at their top 10 most used anchor texts, and taking the following into consideration: branding anchor texts, URL anchor texts and long tail anchor texts.</p>
<h2>Exceptions and Keeping Everything Relative</h2>
<p>When sorting through all this data, there were some websites that stood out. Some focused on particular methods of SEO while others completely ignored other areas. In fact, despite best <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a>, some didn&#8217;t even have the keyword on their homepage. One didn’t even have it within the most crucial area, the title tag. There are so many exceptions with SEO, but to get a good understanding of what you&#8217;re going up against, you need to find the averages of these important SEO areas and set your sights on having your website compete with those averages.</p>
<p>When creating goals for your SEO efforts, whether it be to have a certain number of domain links, a certain number of anchor text links, or to have an increased page authority within a certain amount of time, you need to make sure it&#8217;s relative to your industry.</p>
<h2>Don’t Quite Compete? Take Baby Steps &amp; Use the Right Tools</h2>
<p>If you don’t have the time, money, knowledge or momentum to catch that trophy keyword, consider other keywords that are more realistic. Look at keywords in your niche where the ranked pages aren&#8217;t quite as imposing.</p>
<p>Like I said before, you can&#8217;t expect to catch a big fish keyword with a wooden fishing pole and without line and bait. You need the right resources to go after serious keywords. If it&#8217;s obvious that your competition has an SEO team, whether in-house or an outsourced <a href="http://www.seo.com/about/">SEO firm</a>, you might want to do the same. If the keyword(s) you want to rank for is going to be a game changer for your business, consider investing some serious money.</p>
<h2>Remember, You Still Need to Perform Keyword Research</h2>
<p>If you have a handful of keywords that you’ve sorted through and deem the most valuable, keyword research is that final step to make sure your efforts aren’t going to waste. Once you’ve put yourself up against the websites that already rank, you can then determine whether you think you can get there, too.</p>
<p>Keep your eye on the big picture. Just because the ranked websites have a page rank of 6 or a massive amount of links, doesn’t mean you can’t outrank them. But, if the ranked sites all consistently trump you in just about every area that Google looks at to determine keyword position, you might not want to pursue that keyword quite yet.</p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/measure-online-competition/">33 Ways to Measure Your Online Competition</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>An Over-Optimizing Nightmare: Staying Off Google’s Naughty List</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=staying-off-googles-naughty-list</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:11:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kevin W. Phelps</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Analytics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Google]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Link Building]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[google deindex]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[keyword stuffing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[over-optimization]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.seo.com/?p=12788</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/">An Over-Optimizing Nightmare: Staying Off Google’s Naughty List</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p>Disclaimer: The below post illustrates a personal experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of SEO.com or the work performed with their clients. For the most part, link building is pretty straight forward and simple. You can publish your articles, request some directory listings, bookmark links, guest blog [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/">An Over-Optimizing Nightmare: Staying Off Google’s Naughty List</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/">An Over-Optimizing Nightmare: Staying Off Google’s Naughty List</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><em>Disclaimer: The below post illustrates a personal experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect those of SEO.com or the work performed with their clients.</em></p>
<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-12825" title="facepalm" alt="" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/facepalm1-250x182.png" width="250" height="182" /></p>
<p>For the most part, <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/strategic-link-building-drives-huge-results/">link building</a> is pretty straight forward and simple. You can publish your articles, request some directory listings, bookmark links, guest blog posts, request links from other webmasters or even purchase links if you’re feeling particularly rebellious. But keep in mind if you don’t have a strategy behind it, you might fall face-first into a ditch filled with sorrow and regret.</p>
<p>Many times so many of us start a website in hopes that in 5-6 months we might start seeing some decent cash rolling in. Because you need link building to attain those rankings, you need to make sure the links you’re acquiring match the progress that your website is currently at. Let me explain.</p>
<p>Most experienced <a href="http://www.seo.com/">search engine optimization</a> professionals understand that you need a healthy balance of links. Building links in moderation and keeping a proper anchor text to non-anchor text ratio is crucial. If your entire backlink portfolio consists of anchor text links, it isn’t going to look natural to the search engines. Same can be said if everything is a directory link, bookmark link and especially a comment link.</p>
<p>If you are submitting articles, make sure that you are using your anchor text but also make sure that some of those links back to your site are strictly the URL or business name. If your site is brand new, the number of anchor text to branded links should probably be a 50:50 ratio so your backlinks don’t look unnatural.</p>
<p>However, the same cannot be said about large, established websites. Odds are that if your site has 40,000 backlinks, submitting higher ratio of anchor text links aren’t going to hurt you or your rankings. For example, if you pointed 1000+ spammy, anchor text filled comment links to YouTube, do you think it’s going to make a difference? On the other hand, if you did the same to a brand new site with no reputation or authority, you’ll probably get a penalty very quickly.</p>
<p>I’d like to share a personal experience with this. On one of my personal websites I wasn’t following my own advice. I got in the habit of submitting content using my anchor text. There was variation of the anchor text but I never threw in my URL to make it appear more natural.</p>
<p>For a couple months all I saw was an increase, and for two of my main keywords I even attained first page rankings. I was very happy and hopeful that this website might actually bring in some money. Then, on one fateful day, Google dropped the hammer…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/attachment/rankings-dropped/" rel="attachment wp-att-12789"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12789" title="rankings dropped" alt="" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/rankings-dropped.png" width="592" height="121" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>As expected, I was very perturbed to say the least. After looking through my backlinks I found that I clearly wasn’t following best practice. I wasn’t building enough natural looking, credible links. Instead I got caught up in my fantastic rankings and continued submitting content, directories, bookmarks and other links using only my anchor text.</p>
<p>Because I was a new site with a limited online existence, building these links worked for almost two months, but it caught up with me. If I was a site with some authority and a very healthy, natural looking backlink portfolio, this probably wouldn’t have happened.</p>
<p>Just remember that the links that you are pointing back to your website need to vary when it comes to your anchor text and method of link being built. I think the same analogy (for the most part) applies to life, “too much or too little of anything, is a bad thing. Keep everything in moderation.”</p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/staying-off-googles-naughty-list/">An Over-Optimizing Nightmare: Staying Off Google’s Naughty List</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>The Best Keyword Research Method Ever Invented For Blogs</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:54:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Scott Cowley</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Keyword Research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rankings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seo for bloggers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[soovle]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.seo.com/?p=12708</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/">The Best Keyword Research Method Ever Invented For Blogs</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/scowley/">Scott Cowley</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p>Have you ever done keyword research for a blog post and experienced no resulting organic traffic? You may be thinking, “What happened? The terms I optimized for had search volume. Why am I not getting a piece of that?” Welcome to the club. Poor Keyword Research = Poor Optimization = Poor Results Credibility is a [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/">The Best Keyword Research Method Ever Invented For Blogs</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/scowley/">Scott Cowley</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/">The Best Keyword Research Method Ever Invented For Blogs</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/scowley/">Scott Cowley</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p style="text-align: center"><a rel="attachment wp-att-12765" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/attachment/word-cloud-blog/"><img class="size-full wp-image-12765 aligncenter" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/word-cloud-blog.jpg" alt="Blog Word Cloud" width="550" height="359" /></a></p>
<p>Have you ever done keyword research for a blog post and experienced no resulting organic traffic? You may be thinking, “What happened? The terms I optimized for had search volume. Why am I not getting a piece of that?”</p>
<p>Welcome to the club.</p>
<h2><strong>Poor Keyword Research = Poor Optimization = Poor Results</strong></h2>
<p>Credibility is a major obstacle for blog posts. Search engines want to rank the most credible, comprehensive resource for a given keyword term. Most blog posts don’t have what it takes to be “most credible.” A blog post can gain credibility and ranking as it picks up links, either naturally or through deliberate linkbuilding efforts, but this is more commonly seen with <a href="http://www.wolf-howl.com/seo/evergreen-content/">evergreen content</a> than with blog content. Bloggers typically aren’t linkbuilding.</p>
<p>Competition is another reason for the difficulty in getting organic traffic from blog posts. <a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal">Google’s keyword tool</a>, used by many bloggers, does not display all of the terms that people search for, nor does it display terms with small levels of search volume. Because of this, many bloggers in the same niche research and optimize using the same limited set of keyword terms and make it nearly impossible for newcomers to rank without a lot of SEO work. It’s hard for some to accept this idea that Google’s keyword volume tool is actually setting a post up for organic failure.</p>
<p>As a hypothetical example, suppose I write a blog post about keyword research methods (how apropos). I do a little bit of research using Google’s Keyword Tool and find that “how to do keyword research” gets 320 global monthly searches.</p>
<p><a rel="attachment wp-att-12717" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/attachment/google-keyword-tool-results/"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12717" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/google-keyword-tool-results.png" alt="Google Keyword Tool Results" width="565" height="192" /></a></p>
<p>I convince myself that the term is within reach. 320 isn’t a very high number after all. So I title my post “How To Do Keyword Research,” and interlace those words and phrases throughout the body of the content and press “Publish.” A couple of days later, the blog post is ranking on page 6 and gets no organic traffic except for the occasional hit from a bizarre semi-relevant phrase. Failure.</p>
<h2><strong>Obvious Keywords = Higher Competition Levels</strong></h2>
<p>What I didn’t realize when I published the post is that the competition level for a term like “how to do keyword research” is high enough to keep my new blog post from getting anywhere near the first page.</p>
<p><a rel="attachment wp-att-12718" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/attachment/google-search-result-how-to-do-keyword-research/"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12718" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/google-search-result-how-to-do-keyword-research.png" alt="How To Do Keyword Research Search Results" width="581" height="563" /></a></p>
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<p>On the results page are several posts that have my exact term in the title. As a blogger, I know my niche well enough to know that several of these sites are far bigger and more credible than mine. (A few SEO-savvy bloggers will be able to verify their hunch by looking at backlinks, PageRank, etc). So if I want my blog post to rank well for this result and get any organic traffic, I’ll have to build my own links to the post and I just don’t have that kind of time. I barely had time to write this post! Alas!</p>
<h2><strong>Best Keyword Research Method = Find Under-the-Radar Terms</strong></h2>
<p>If you’re a blogger who cares enough to do some keyword research for each post, but doesn’t want to build links, then consider trying what I’ve been testing for about the last month. It involves targeting under-the-radar keywords that are relevant and being searched, but are too low to register on most keyword tools.</p>
<p><a rel="attachment wp-att-12719" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/attachment/under-the-radar-keyword-research-method-by-scott-cowley/"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12719" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Under-The-Radar-Keyword-Research-Method-By-Scott-Cowley.jpg" alt="Under-The-Radar Keyword Research Method" width="555" height="245" /></a></p>
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<p>The goal in being a guerrilla keyword researcher is to find the best “ultra long tail” terms, optimize the post, rank in the top spots automatically, and reap the traffic. As you get traffic, you’ll get more engagement, more natural links, and more site credibility, allowing you to rank for even more competitive keywords later. This approach works best if you have a blog with a little bit of PageRank. A PR1 or PR2 should be able to get a high ranking for guerrilla terms.</p>
<p>The basic steps to my blogging keyword research strategy (which I’ll explore in detail):</p>
<ol>
<li>Write a good, interesting post</li>
<li>Identify core keywords related to the post</li>
<li>Use Google’s Keyword Tool to find long-tail variations with search volume</li>
<li>Use <a href="http://www.soovle.com/">Soovle.com</a> to find even <strong>longer</strong> variations with <strong>implied</strong> search volume</li>
<li>Search these terms in Google to identify low competition results</li>
<li>Optimize and win!</li>
</ol>
<h2><strong>Step 1: Start With Strong Content</strong></h2>
<p>Whatever you write should be engaging, have a unifying theme, and a decent length. More is usually better for SEO, so try for at least 300+ words.</p>
<h2><strong>Step 2: Identify Core Keywords Related To The Post</strong></h2>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p>In the example, we identified “keyword research” to be the core term. In your case, there may be certain terms that are used interchangeably so you may have multiple possible core terms.</p>
<h2><strong>Step 3: Use Google’s Keyword Tool To Find Long-Tail Variations</strong></h2>
<p>Working off the core term, Google’s keyword tool provides some keyword suggestions that still have measurable search volume. You can play around with different combinations of these to find relevant long-tail terms. In this case, we liked “how to do keyword research” as a long-tail keyword, even though it was still too broad to keep. There are probably other long-tail terms we could work with.</p>
<h2><strong>Step 4: Use Soovle.com To Identify Longer Variations With Implied Search Volume</strong></h2>
<p><a href="http://www.soovle.com/">Soovle.com</a> is basically an aggregator of “suggest” results from search engines like Google, Bing, YouTube, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Answers.com and Amazon.com. One thing we know about “suggest” results is that they are based on searcher behavior and that results at the top have more search volumes than those below (but the important thing to know is that <strong>all</strong> “suggest” results have some search volume).</p>
<p>There’s nothing novel about the way Soovle works, but I like it for its simplicity and its breadth of results. And it’s free (you could also use something like <a href="http://www.scrapebox.com/">ScrapeBox</a> for a more robust, paid solution).</p>
<p>So we plug in the term “how to do keyword research.”</p>
<p><a rel="attachment wp-att-12720" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/attachment/soovle-example-how-to-do-keyword-research/"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12720" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/soovle-example-how-to-do-keyword-research.png" alt="Soovle Example How To Do Keyword Research" width="564" height="267" /></a></p>
<p>We get several variations of this term including some relevant ones:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to do keyword research on google</li>
<li>How to do keyword research for seo</li>
<li>How to do keyword research seo</li>
</ul>
<p>Since there are 10 results listed, there’s a good chance that there are other combinations we’re not seeing, so starting with “how to do keyword research,” we can start going through the alphabet and adding letters as if starting a new word at the end of the phrase, e.g., “how to do keyword research a” and “how to do keyword research b,” etc. Doing this reveals a few more variations we didn’t see before:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to do keyword research for free (this made me laugh)</li>
<li>How to do keyword research google adwords</li>
<li>How to do keyword research niche</li>
<li>How to do keyword research tutorial</li>
</ul>
<p>As I mentioned before, all of these terms get search volume, even though most of them would show none using Google’s volume tool (which is exactly what you want).</p>
<p>Another thing you can do is start with a broader term in Soovle, like “keyword research.” By starting broad, nearly every suggested term is one that also has a good amount of traffic, so none are good candidates. What you can do, though, is start front-loading the term “keyword research” with the <a href="http://www.frankwbaker.com/Most%20Common%20Adj%20Verbs.htm">most common adjectives and verbs</a> to find under-the-radar variations, phrases that people naturally use when trying to search, like “easy keyword research.” For adjectives, I find that “good” and “best” are great places to start. You can also start with verbs that are associated with the term. The only verb that really goes with keyword research is “do” so I type in “do keyword research” and see what else is generated.</p>
<p>When I start with the term “best keyword research” and then add letters like we did previously [“best keyword research a(b,c,d,e…)”] we end up with some more fun and relevant terms:</p>
<ul>
<li>Best keyword research article</li>
<li>Best keyword research guide</li>
<li>Best keyword research method</li>
<li>Best keyword research strategy</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Step 5: Audit The Terms In Google</strong></h2>
<p>Once you have identified some good terms through Soovle, check them for search volume in Google Keyword Tool, then search for the terms in Google. You’re looking for a search result with close to zero exact match titles for the term you selected.</p>
<p><a rel="attachment wp-att-12721" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/attachment/best-keyword-research-method/"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12721" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/best-keyword-research-method.png" alt="Best Keyword Research Method Search Results" width="576" height="433" /></a></p>
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<p>In this case, “best keyword research method” is nearly free of exact competition and the sites that rank look easy enough to overtake.</p>
<h2><strong>Step 6: Optimize and Win!</strong></h2>
<p>Optimization includes having the exact keyword phrase in the post title, meta description, and body content. The rest of the content should also be relevant to the keyword. If possible, you can do some internal linking from older blog posts. You can optimize images as well by giving them names that include your search term.</p>
<p>Once you get into a rhythm of going through this keyword research process, you get used to it, and it honestly doesn’t take very long. In some of the posts I’ve tested this out on, I’ve found it easy to rank without extra linkbuilding, and one post can pull in dozens of monthly organic visits from one term and its variations. It&#8217;s really quite nice.</p>
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<h2><strong>But Don&#8217;t Take My Word For It&#8230;</strong></h2>
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<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/best-keyword-research-method-ever-for-blogs/">The Best Keyword Research Method Ever Invented For Blogs</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/scowley/">Scott Cowley</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Identifying and Combating Duplicate Content Issues</title>
		<link>http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues</link>
		<comments>http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:21:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Kevin W. Phelps</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advanced]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[<p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/">Identifying and Combating Duplicate Content Issues</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p>A recent post by Paddy Moogan from Distilled about when to use a 301 redirect and when to use a Rel =Canonical got me thinking about all the possible ways we can fight duplicate content issues. First, for those who are new into search marketing; a duplicate content penalty is a consequence that the Search [...]<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a></p></p><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/">Identifying and Combating Duplicate Content Issues</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/">Identifying and Combating Duplicate Content Issues</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p><p><a rel="attachment wp-att-12466" href="http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/attachment/duplicate-content/"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-12466" title="duplicate-content" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/duplicate-content.png" alt="Duplicate Content" width="160" height="160" /></a>A recent post by Paddy Moogan from Distilled about <a href="http://www.seomoz.org/blog/301-redirect-or-relcanonical-which-one-should-you-use">when to use a 301 redirect and when to use a Rel =Canonical</a> got me thinking about all the possible ways we can fight duplicate content issues.</p>
<p>First, for those who are new into search marketing; a duplicate content penalty is a consequence that the Search Engines impose when they find large amounts of text that have been copied from other sources on the Web. Some would argue that the search engines are simply filtering you out of the SERP’s (search engine results pages) in effort to deliver more relevant, fresh content. Anyway you look at it, you won’t benefit from it, and therefore it’s a penalty in my eyes.</p>
<p>
<h2>What can cause duplicate content problems?</h2>
</p>
<p>Duplicate homepages can be seen as individual pages, possibly discounting the merit that your true homepage has earned. If your site homepage can be viewed like the examples below, you may want to continue reading to correct the error.</p>
<p><strong>http://www.example.com</strong> or <strong>http://example.com</strong> are both good, but it needs to be one or the other.<br />
 <strong>http://www.example.com/index</strong> or <strong>/home</strong> or <strong>/homepage</strong> needs to be corrected.</p>
<p>There is also the possibility that someone has outright stolen your content. If that content you created has already been crawled and established itself in Google’s index, odds are that thief isn’t going to benefit on the search engines. Ideally they’ll just get filtered out.</p>
<p>Creating dozens of versions of the same article to distribute to article sites/networks is a rather popular <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/7-crude-links/">link building</a> technique. While I won’t take a stance on its effectiveness, if you use an article that is already on your site and create numerous versions of it, it can come back to bite you because the search engines can still see the correlation between the original and the copies spread all over the Web. It’s quite possible it could even discount those included links further.</p>
<p>Some shopping cart content management systems can have different paths to get to the same product or category page. Why is this an issue? Well if those two different URLs are going to the same product, then it’s fair to say that those are duplicate pages.</p>
<p>However, if you have a blog and you’re worried about your different categories having duplicate content because of the different categories you posted it in; the Search Engines are keen to this and understand blogs. Also, the more posts you get in those categories, the more it’ll mix up that content preventing any sort of duplicate content problem. Same story with post snippets.</p>
<p><h2>How can I find any duplicate content that could be hurting my site?</h2>
</p>
<p>One way is to browse your site to see if you have any of the examples above. Another is to type your URL into <a href="http://copyscape.com/">Copyscape</a>. Keep in mind that when you do this, it is only showing you the result for that exact page that you entered, not sitewide. Also, it will not return results of duplicate content that you have on the same URL that you submitted your query for.</p>
<p><h2>How do I fix my duplicate content issues?</h2>
</p>
<p>First, the odds of you hurting from other people stealing your content isn’t very likely. Lookup SEOmoz.com in copyscape.com and you’ll see that there are pages of results but because they were the originators of the content, it’s not likely that they’ll be filtered out or receive any sort of penalty.</p>
<p>If you have content that other people have copied or stolen, you can try e-mailing the webmaster and kindly asking them to take it down. Chances of them responding aren’t very likely so the best thing you can do is probably just forget about it. People steal content left and right on the Internet, dwelling on it is just wasting your time when you’re probably not getting penalized from it anyway.</p>
<p><h2>How to fix duplicate homepage issues</h2>
</p>
<p>Luckily if you are getting penalized because you have duplicate pages, it’s on your end of things and it’s relatively easy to fix. If you have duplicate homepage problems locate your .htaccess file.</p>
<p>Add the following code to redirect all your www-URLs to the non-www URLs:</p>
<li><em>RedirectMatch</em>: <strong>301 ^(.*)$ http://domain.com</strong> </li>
<li><em>RedirectMatch permanent:</em> <strong>^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com</strong></p>
</li>
<p>You’ll need to replace “domain.com” with your URL as well as change whether you want everything to go to www or non-www.</p>
<p>If you need to get rid of your /index or /homepage page problems you’ll need to implement a simple 301 redirect. This will also need to be specified in the .htaccess file using the code below:</p>
<li><em>Redirect 301:</em> <strong>/badurl.htm http://www.example.com/</strong></p>
</li>
<p>Change the example URLs to make sense with your particular situation.</p>
<li><em>Redirect 301</em> <strong>/index http://www.example.com</strong></p>
</li>
<p>For more clarification, it’s telling the site to permanently redirect your /index to http://www.example.com leaving you with a clean URL structure. Now, all your duplicate homepages should go to either http://example.com or http://www.example.com, whichever you preferred.</p>
<p><h2>Fixing Other Duplicate Pages Using the Rel=Canonical Tag</h2>
</p>
<p>For example, if you have a product site that has more than one way of getting to the product, those duplicate URLs could be hurting each other. For example:</p>
<p><strong>http://www.site.com/ipods/skins/blue-ipod-covers</strong> vs. <strong>http://www.site.com/skins/ipods/blue-ipod-covers</strong></p>
<p>Same page, different URLs. In this instance, using a rel=canonical tag is in your best interest. Using it will tell the major Search Engines that the page that copies your other page should be treated as one in the same. For example:</p>
<p>If<strong> http://www.site.com/ipods/skins/blue-ipod-covers</strong> isn’t the correct page, and you would rather <strong>have http://www.site.com/skins/ipods/blue-ipod-covers</strong> be the main page, you’d want to put a rel=canonical tag on <strong>http://www.site.com/ipods/skins/blue-ipod-covers.</strong> This way the Search Engines understand that it’s a user-generated duplicate page and that you want all the links and other metrics to be directed towards the right page. No longer will the search engines be confused on which page to display or give credit too.</p>
<p>Using the rel=canonical tag is an alternative to programming a 301 redirect. A 301 redirect is still the preferred way to guarantee the search engines understand your intent to move content from one URL to another.</p>
<p>In addition to fixing potential duplicate content issues, treating the two separate pages as one can help any keyword cannibalization that could be going on.</p>
<a href='http://www.seo.com/request-a-proposal/?utm_source=seoblog&utm_medium=banner&utm_content=insight&utm_campaign=blogcta'><img width="670" height="116" src="http://www.seo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Get-Internet-Marketing-Insight-For-Your-Company-SEO.com_.png" class="attachment-blog-header wp-post-image" alt="Get Internet Marketing Insight For Your Company - SEO.com" /></a><p><a href="http://www.seo.com/blog/identifying-combating-duplicate-content-issues/">Identifying and Combating Duplicate Content Issues</a> is a post by SEO expert <a rel="author" href="http://www.seo.com/author/kphelps/">Kevin W. Phelps</a>. For information about our <a href="http://www.seo.com/services/">SEO services</a> or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the <a href="http://www.seo.com/blog">SEO.com blog</a>.</p>]]></content:encoded>
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