Blogging

“SEO is dead.” Making a statement like that is a great way to generate lots of traffic, and comments, as Micah Baldwin and Mike McDonald have recently demonstrated. But it’s still nonsense. As I noted in my comment to comment Michah’s post on Learn to Duck, articles like this have been appearing since at least 2003, so if SEO is dying, it’s an awfully slow death.

It is changing, however, as Google’s plans for search personalization are rolled out. Using factors such as geographic location, “preferences” as indicated by your search history, and even integration of tools like SearchWiki and Google Friend Connect (nicely explained by TechCrunch), Google will customize search results for each user.

This means that, very soon, your site may show up at #1, #5, #12 or some other spot for any given search term depending on who is doing the searching. Already, automated position-checking tools like Rank Checker and SEO Chat produce erroneous results with Google; that soon won’t matter as there will no “right” answer as to where your site appears on Google for a specific search phrase anyway, other than “it depends.”

But again, none of this means that SEO is dead, only that it is changing (as it constantly does). Considering Google’s move to make more of universal search and personalized search, here are some important points to keep in mind:

• The basic principles of good SEO (proper use of on-page factors like title, meta tags, headlines and quality content with sufficient keyword density, along with building high-quality external links) principles still apply. Although your precise search position will vary depend on the searcher’s location, demographics and other factors, it won’t rank highly for anyone if it isn’t well-optimized.
• The changes may help local businesses. With more of an emphasis on location, even small company sites may appear more prominently in searches on broad, highly competitive phrases such as CRM consulting services in their local area. In the b2b realm, this could raise the profile of value-added resellers, systems integrators and managed service providers relative to software developers and hardware manufacturers, making strong channel relations more important than ever.
• If Google’s changes actually succeed in making search results more relevant, it could help both searchers and site owners. If you’re the owner of Ace Dry Cleaners, for example, you really don’t want traffic from people who are searching for Ace Insurance or Ace Hardware any more than those searchers want to find you. So, the end result could be less traffic, but more relevant traffic.
• Google’s moves are likely to have the greatest impact on broad, highly competitive, ambiguous words and phrases. There will be much less variation in search results between users for long tail and specific niche phrases—which is, again, why SEO is far from dead.
• Since there will no longer be a reliable measure of search engine position for any individual site and search phrase, other metrics will become more important: overall search traffic, quality measures such as bounce rate, and SEO page grade as measured by tools such as HubSpot’s Website Grader, the search engine optimization analysis tool from SEO Workers, or Traffic Travis. There will also likely be more emphasis on search-driven conversions, though this is, strictly speaking, more of a website optimization than an SEO issue.
• SEO requires a mix of skills—coding, design, copywriting, link building, PR, social media optimization—that most organizations don’t have in-house. Larger companies may be able to form internal SEO teams, but SMBs will still need to rely on outside agencies that can provide this mix of skills on an affordable, as-needed basis.
• Search algorithms are constantly changing. One day the meta keywords tag is critical, the next it doesn’t matter. First you should get linked in as many online directories as possible, then you needn’t bother. A tactic that is white hat one day becomes gray hat, or even black hat, the next. Only specialists can keep on top of the constant change and assure that current best practices are being utilized.

Finally, SEO will gradually morph into web presence optimization (WPO)—a term so important I’m giving it its own category. There will be more to come on this soon. For now, rest assured that reports of the death of SEO have been greatly exaggerated.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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SEO Is Not Dead, Just Changing: What This Means

In an ideal world, SEO would be taken into consideration from the earliest stages of a new website design process, and “baked in” to the site from the start.

(Okay, I take that back; in an ideal world we’d all have movie star looks, be in Olympic athlete condition, and have the net worth of Larry Page, so none of us would worry about arcane things like SEO. But I digress.)

In the real world, however, SEOs are often called in to optimize an existing site, after all of the URLs are created, the navigation is already in place and all of the content is written. While that obviously reduces flexibility and makes certain steps impossible, the site’s search performance can still be improved using this 12-step process.

1. Compile an initial keyword list

This involves two independent activities. First, generate a list of keywords based on the content of each page. Second, ask key individuals in the company (sales, top executives, etc.) for their lists of key search phrases. It’s not unusual to turn up several important 2-4 word key phrases that don’t even appear on the website!

2. Expand, verify and prioritize target keyword list

Use SEO keyword tools to expand your initial list of key words and phrases from step one, then prioritize the list based on search term popularity as well as value to the business. In other words, ask two questions for every key phrase: 1) how popular is this term among searchers? and 2) how likely is it that a searcher using this phrase is looking for what we have to sell?

3. Match keywords to pages

Once the keyword list is established, search terms should be mapped to specific pages. Each page can support, ideally, one “core” key phrase as well as 2-3 long tail variants. So, for example, a page optimized for a high-volume two-word phrase like “blue thingamabobs” could also be the target page for “screaming blue thingamabobs,” “blue thingamabobs sales” and “screaming blue thingamabobs sales.”

An excellent way to start matching keywords to phrases is to use Google Advanced Search. Enter your key phrase in the box for “this exact wording or phrase:” and your domain (in the form company.com) in the “Search within a site or domain:” box. If no good matches are found, you may need to rewrite an existing page to target the key phrase or even create an entirely new page.

4. Review URLs / Modify content and meta tags

Modifying URLs on an existing site is much more painful than using a search-friendly URL in the initial design, but can be worth the effort if the initial URLs were chosen with no regard for SEO. For example, if you sell call recording software, then a URL like call-recording-software.html is much more likely to get you ranked highly by the search engines than is a URL such as products.html.

In addition to URLs, perform other on-page SEO work to optimize each page for its corresponding set of target key phrases by optimizing title tags, on-page headings (h1, h2 etc. tags), use of key phrases in bold and italic, and a target keyword density of 1.5% to 4%.

5. Perform initial SEO check (baseline)

With on-site SEO tasks completed, it’s time to perform a baseline SEO check. This is like the “before” photo in a weight loss ad. Run you final list of key terms through an automated tool such as the SEO Chat keyword position tool or the SEOBook Rank Checker tool. The results probably won’t be pretty, but they are important, so save this check and back it up.

6. Re-submit site to search engines / Create and register Google site map

It’s true that unless you somehow have managed to create a site that absolutely no one links to, there is no need to manually submit your site to the search engines; they’ll find it (eventually). However, this step doesn’t hurt, it can get your re-indexed more quickly, and it only takes five minutes to hand-submit a site to Google, Yahoo and MSN, so there’s no real reason not to do this.

Next, create and submit an XML site map for Google. Again, there’s no guarantee this step will improve your search engine positioning, but it will help Google to index more of the pages on your site.

7. Identify sites for linking: by keywords and competitors

Perform searches for your top key terms as well as competitor names. Compile a list of sites for link-building efforts based on these searches.

8. Build external links

External links are a critical component of SEO. In addition to getting your site linked from appropriate directories and social media sites, undertake an effort to get your site linked on sites that show up well for searches on your key search phrases (such as blogs, publications, portal sites and specialized directories) as well as on sites where your competitors are listed. Here are several more tactics for SEO link building.

9. 30-day SEO check and report

These on-site and off-site SEO efforts should begin to show results within 2-3 weeks, but give it a month to be safe. After 30 days, run an updated search position check. Normally, this will show a mix of significant improvement in search engine position on some terms, more moderate improvement on others. The results will indicate for which terms additional efforts are needed.

10. Ongoing content edits

Based on the results of the 30-day SEO check, make additional content edits to improve search engine positioning for your “challenging” terms. These include title tag modifications, image alt tags and image file names, internal in-text links, on-page headings and page content.

11. Ongoing link building

Link building is a process; over time, you’ll discover new sites and blogs to approach for links, develop new link bait content (articles, podcasts, video etc.), and establish new relationships that can facilitate links.

Make sure to maximize the link-building value of your PR efforts as well by writing SEO press releases with keyword text links. (Here are more press release SEO tips for writing search optimized press releases.) Use Interactive PR practices to get your news linked from blogs and social bookmarking sites.

12. Monthly SEO checks / Ongoing reporting, analysis and optimizing

Monitor and analyze the results of your SEO efforts on a monthly basis, so you can bask in your successes and focus continuing efforts where needed. Review critical website analytics each month such as sources of traffic, top-performing keywords and navigation paths through your site. SEO isn’t just about driving more traffic, it’s ultimately about producing ROI, so focus efforts on getting visitors to take a desired action (purchase a product, sign up for a free trial, download a white paper, or whatever). If, for example, you’ve written a keyword-rich article on “Exciting New Applications for Screaming Blue Thingamabobs” that’s drawing a lot of organic search traffic, maximize the benefit of the page by linking to relevant white papers, demos and other materials on your site.

There you have it. If you’re relatively new to SEO, I hope you find these 12 steps helpful. If you’re an SEO pro, feel free to improve on this list by leaving a comment.

*****

Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

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12 Steps to Successful SEO

My favorite IM application Trillian has just put out a brand new build of its upcoming Astra product for alpha testers. New are Facebook notifications and quick shortcuts to jump straight to things like photo galleries and user profiles. Sorely missing from that, however is Facebook’s chat, which is what I think many Trillian users have been pining for (myself included). Free competitor Digsby has had Facebook chat integration since the beginning of May, shortly after the service was launched.

Co-founder and head developer of Trillian Scott Werndorfer tells me his team is waiting on proper XMPP integration with Facebook chat to be finished, something that might be announced at next week’s F8 event after originally being promised in mid-May. Until then developers have had to cobble together their own solutions that require the use of your browser–something nobody wants to deal with with their desktop chat application.

The good news is that today’s build brings with it support for IRC; the chat medium that has proven to be invaluable for things like live blogging and customer care chat in enterprise businesses. Trillian has full support for administrative controls and server surfing. You can also encrypt the contents of your chat room in case you’re sharing personal or business information–something AIM and many others don’t provide.

Trillian Astra is still currently in private alpha, meaning you’ll have to sign up to be a tester to give it a spin. You can find the sign-up page here.

Facebook chat and IRC join Trillian as supported chat protocols.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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Trillian adds Facebook, IRC support to Astra

KickApps has expanded the service offering of its on-demand social media platform by partnering with Userplane to add Live Chat, instant messaging and presence awareness functionality.

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KickApps Adds IM, Live Chat and Presence to Platform