Blogging

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.

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

See the original post:
12 Steps to Successful SEO

Blog optimization is critical to building a successful readership. By making small changes here and there, you can increase your traffic significantly.
Start by looking at your titles. Are they clever and witty, but not search engine friendly? Keep in mind that search engines will notice not just what is said, but the order of […]

Here is the original post:
Blog Optimization: Making Small Changes Increases Traffic

MarketingSherpa yesterday published an article titled Long-Tail Keywords Dead? We Answer This Question and 14 Others on SEO (open access on their site until September 25). Without summarizing the entire 5-page (at 9-point font size!) article, here are a few highlights and observations:

Paid vs. Organic Search

The article states that 95% of search clicks go to organic results, and only 5% to paid links. While there’s no question that organic search results get more clicks than the associated ads, the contrast isn’t quite that extreme. Lee Odden puts this breakout at closer to 60/40, HubSpot has it at 75/25, and Dynamic Digital says…a lot of things, but basically that organic results get 70-80% while paid links receive 20-30%.

Because organic links perform better, Sherpa advises focusing on SEO, then “only when you see natural search traffic going down should you look to paid search links to supplement that organic traffic.” That’s just plain wrong!

The first question you have to ask yourself is: what’s the value of paid search to you? The closer your product is to the low-cost, tactical, single-decision maker end of the scale (e.g. computer network hardware), the better pay-per-click advertising works. For products that are very expensive, strategic and involve multiple decision makers (e.g. post-merger consulting services), the less effective search engine advertising is.

Second, there’s an excellent argument to be made for using paid search first. It will show you which terms most successfully drive profitable traffic to your site much more quickly than natural SEO can. Then you can focus your SEO efforts on high-value terms that are easy to optimize for, and continue to use paid search for those terms which are very difficult to SEO.

Third, as Anne Holland always advises when faced with any question like this, the answer is to “test, test, test.”

Average cost per click varies considerably by industry and product type.

Long-Tail Keywords rock. “The majority of searches (67%) are made up of one to three keywords. However, 82% of searchers said that they are likely to enter a few more words when they can’t find what they are looking for in a search. Phrases of four or more words are often used to deliver the targeted results that most searchers aren’t seeing with broader-based search terms. These terms can offer you higher conversion rates at a lower cost per click” when used in SEM campaigns, and are far easier to SEO than two-word or even three-word phrases.

Questionable advice on professional SEO: “If you’re a marketer who doesn’t have a good foundation in Web design, try to find a member of your IT or Web design team willing to undertake your SEO projects.” Actually, that sentence would be fine if they had used the phrase “collaborate with you on” in place of the word “undertake.” SEO is a mix of art and science. And I’d argue that its easier to teach a marketer the science than it is to teach at IT person the art.

SEO Frequency: The majority of your SEO work should happen up-front, during the website design phase. After that, you need to enact a policy of steadily adding to that framework with small pieces of new, optimized content…Aim to add at least one new element that builds on your SEO strategy every few days.” Just need to add: the majority of the ongoing effort is link building, not onsite changes.

Blogging for SEO: “Blogs can be a tremendous piece of your search marketing strategy. Blog posts create an ongoing stream of new, keyword-rich content that often generates links from other sites back to your website.” As long as the blogging team follows a few simple guidelines and avoids the seven deadly sins of blogging, then absolutely!

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom

Read more from the original source:
Sherpa Answers 15 Common SEO Questions