Search Engine Marketing Group » SEO tools

This Past Week in SEO (5/20/13)

Gerald Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:24:34 +0000

Once you get a chance to go through them, be sure to leave a comment and let me know which link was the most useful to you!

Viral Content Buzz: Why Social is The New Backlink Find out nine different places where you can promote your website or blog, as well as how you can use Viral Content Buzz to promote your blog’s best posts.
15 Things You Need To Know About The #NewGooglePlus “Infographics will display in a nearly-useful size, A Hangout is now any form of group communication & You can now send money through Gmail/Google” are just three of the fifteen topics covered in this image and video rich post.
A Facebook Update In Real Life: If you’re in need of a good laugh, this 2.5 minute will do the trick!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvQcabZ1zrk
What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google? Although 7.5 minutes may sound long for a YouTube video, since this one comes directly from Matt Cutts and addresses several important issues, it’s definitely worth watching the entire thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQmQeKU25zg
SEO Experts Interview: What’s the Hottest New SEO or Social Media Tool This Year? Ann Smarty, John Rampton, Ashley Moreno, Jon Henshaw, Alexis Grant, Viktar Khamianok, Tyler Shannon, Scott Langdon and myself all share the SEO or social media tool that we’re currently the most excited about using.
Penguin 2.0 and Future Google Updates Kev Massey covers several topics related to Google’s Penguin 2.0 update, including hacked sites, authority authors and result clusters.
5 Clever Ways Your Business Can Use Video to Drive Traffic Steve Young discusses how creating a parody, your own whiteboard animation and three other video strategies can help you drive traffic.
Klout Integration Pushes Human Powered ‘Expert’ Answers Atop Bing’s Search Results Greg Finn goes over Klout’s official entry into the social answers space, as well as the impact this integration will have on Bing.
Great Comment on “Repurposing Content: The Definitive Guide” If you missed this guide when it was originally published in January, bookmark and read the entire thing when you have some time. But even if you already checked it out earlier this year, be sure to check out the very thoughtful comment Eugene Farber recently left on the issue of “over-repurposing” content.
How To Add Google+ Comments To WordPress Easily Find out how to add Google+ comments to your WordPress blog by using code, code for the Thesis theme or one of three plugins. Also get Just Ask Kim’s opinion on how this type of commenting system will impact a blog’s SEO efforts.

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Gerald Weber

I founded Search Engine Marketing Group in December 2005. More recently I co-founded viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.

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What’s New with Viral Content Buzz

Gerald Weber — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:33:15 +0000

I have to say that I’m quite proud to look back and see just how far Viral Content Buzz has come in a little less than seven months. But while we’re really happy with what we’ve accomplished, that doesn’t mean we’re going to sit back and coast. On the contrary, we’re happy to announce the rollout of a bunch of new features!

Since we’ve been gradually testing and adding some, here’s a look at everything we’ve added over the last few months, as well as our brand new features:

Pinterest Support: Share any infographics or other images that you want through Pinterest. This VCB post has some tips that Pinterest newbies will find especially helpful.
StumbleUpon Support: Just like Pinterest, we’ve now made it super easy to use VCB in conjunction with StumbleUpon. And as with all the sites we support, you have full control over exactly what you promote and share.
Bookmarklet: If you want to use VCB with a single click in Firefox, Chrome, IE or Safari, all you need to do is grab the VCB bookmarklet here. And if you’re on your iPad, you can get a bookmarklet for it here.
Scheduling Tool: This makes it really easy to control exactly when you want sharing to happen.
Customizable Dashboard: Easily switch between a traditional scrolling layout and a Pinterest-style layout that puts multiple stories on each row.
Labels and Folders: Under “My Projects,” you can use labels and folders to keep everything organized by topic, site, client or any other structure that you want.
Karma: Our one-liner for this feature is “the more approved posts you have, the closer you are to being a trusted member.”
Project Report: Easily see who shared what, and when they shared it. We’ve also made it dead simple to download and/or email a report.

Viral Content Buzz Labs

Last month, Ann published a post detailing what the Labs section of Viral Content Buzz is all about. While I highly recommend reading her post, we’ll go over a quick summary now.

VCB Labs is all about coming up with tools and resources to help content marketers. Currently, there are three free tools that anyone can use. They are:

Pinterest Analytics: Get stats for all images on your site that are being shared. This tool also provides features to help you encourage Pinterest users to share your images.
Activity Analyzer: Put in any URL (including an RSS feed link), and you can see detailed information about its performance on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and Google+.
Twitter Chat Client: Makes it easy to start and engage in a Twitter chat simply by using our Twitter chat application.

That’s Not All

In addition to all the new features that are live and ready to use, we’ve got several more in the pipeline. Keep an eye out for:

Facebook Page support
Google Plus support
Being able to create & send multiple Tweets at once, and then they’ll automatically be spaced out based on the settings you choose (similar to Buffer)

Ann and I truly appreciate all the users who are helping to build VCB into an awesome platform, so be sure to let us know what you think about all the new features in the comments!

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Gerald Weber

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Understanding Keyword Research Tools: SEO vs. PPC

Michael — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:08:03 +0000

Keyword research is one of the first things new Internet marketers learn. Understanding what people are looking for online, and how they are searching for it, is the critical step that allows everything else to fall into place. Many keyword tools list several pieces of valuable information, including the amount of searches per month, competition level and advertising rate. This data is fairly straightforward, but not all of it is meant to be used for SEO keyword research. Knowing the difference between SEO and PPC keywords will help you become more visible than ever on the results page and drive the right kind of traffic to your blog or business.

The Difference Between SEO and PPC

The results of search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising campaigns generally appear in the same place: search engine pages. Users enter a certain string of keywords, and then a mix of optimized and paid websites appear. That, however, is where the similarities end. Search engine optimization takes months or even years to build up to a competitive level. Pay-per-click advertisements can bring in instantaneous traffic on even the most high-demand keywords, but it costs a certain amount for every click delivered, and there’s no guarantee that those visitors will convert into sales.

SEO Keyword Research

SEO is all about visibility and luring people in with the same limited real estate as everyone else. Most small websites focus on long-tail keywords to bring in the right kinds of readers and avoid having to compete with the big players for the general search terms. These narrower queries see less traffic but actually help marketers pick out the visitors they want. For example, a website selling holistic remedies can gain a lot more from the keywords “natural toe fungus treatment” than from “toe fungus.” Once a keyword is selected, the marketer uses both on-site and off-site SEO to improve his or her ranking, hopefully seeing a gradual increase in hits and conversions. When performing keyword research for SEO, the most important information to consider is traffic per month.

PPC Keyword Research

Pay-per-click advertising is a different animal. There is a ranking system to most search result advertising spots, particularly with AdWords, that depends partially on bids of cost-per-click as well as the ad’s Quality Score. Quality Scores are determined by the ad’s relevance to a keyword search. That means advertisers need to target the keywords that will bring in more revenue. “The history of sewage treatment in 18th century England,” for example, won’t draw many advertisers because the people searching for it are unlikely to buy anything. The competition for ad spots in this niche, and thus the cost-per-click, will be low, but the returns are so negligible that it’s not worth buying a campaign.

Creating an Integrated Strategy

Both SEO and PPC campaigns have their place in a marketer’s toolbox. Advertising is a great way to boost a website’s popularity while the long-term SEO is being implemented, and can be used to explore new markets worth branching into. Every campaign presents a financial risk and may lose money if the right keywords are paired with the wrong ad copy, or vice versa. On the other hand, poor SEO keyword research can be even more devastating. Losing $200 on advertising makes for a bad day, but spending months building a particular keyword and then hitting a brick wall is worse. Keyword research tools, whether free or paid, usually contain all of the information you need to bring your website to the attention of your customers. Using it effectively in a variety of balanced marketing strategies, however, is up to you.

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Michael

Mike (Michael) Jones is a well-known writer, blogger and web designer from Toronto. He is always looking to discover new trends and analyze the technology for the benefit of his readers no matter they read his articles on a laptop, tablet or from their mobile phone.

Is It Wise to Rely 100% on Link Networks?

Obaidul Haque — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:51:52 +0000

Do you remember what happened on March 19? It’s the day when majority of BMR’s (Build My Rank’s) network was de-indexed by Google. Search engine giant Google has always been on a mission to detect spam. But now, it seeks to destroy spam even more strongly. Build My Rank has done a lot of good to publishers and SEOs for many years. That’s why the news of BMR getting de-indexed shattered the entire SEO community.

What does this step by Google indicate?

[There are two things.]

First, link or blog networks are on Google’s radar now.

Second, links still matter.

If you conduct a search on Google, you can easy find hundreds of reviews that recommend BMR as one of the best SEO tools. Now that the de-indexing has happened many of the reviewers feel sorry about it.

Here’s what Steve (of SteveScottSite) has to say –

Lis (of Lis Sower Butts) says this –

There are high speculations that Google will de-index many other link networks. But what we know for sure is that BMR’s blog network has been de-indexed already. The owner of this link network has honestly shared the details of this de-indexing on their site. In addition, BMR also offers a tutorial for its customers to help the latter remove backlinks to a particular site.

If You’re Building Links via Link Networks…
Obviously, not everyone out there is utilizing link networks to build backlinks. But there are definitely those that rely on link networks massively. Though it’s not entirely bad to use such networks, the best idea is to not depend on just one link network for building backlinks for your niche sites. There are still multiple blog networks that are going strong. However, you need to use your brains and take every step with caution so that you can prevent (unexpected) penalties.

Don’t freak out. Google will always continue to do things it wants to do. The biggest piece of advice that you can use is to diversify your link building efforts as much as possible. If you’re using several sources to build links, it won’t destroy everything in case one of those networks gets hit.

Building a diverse backlinks profile is all about finding more opportunities, analyzing them and leveraging those that look credible.

A truly diverse backlinks profile may include -

Text links
Image links
Country code domain links
Do-follow links
No-follow links
Links from .net, .org, .edu sites

You May Still Use Some of Those Networks!
The de-indexing of BMR is a special case actually. What you must note in this case is that BMR is built around a network of sites that are owned by the same link building service. [These sites belong to just one owner]. On the other hand, there are other link networks that thrive around a community. They have a network of sites that belong to different individuals like you and me. That’s why you really need to rack your brains before making a SEO decision.

Getting the point? Please feel free to share your own opinions and thoughts by casting your vote in the poll below.

Your browser doesn’t support iFrames Vote for this poll here.

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Obaidul Haque

Obaidul works as an SEO manager handling client projects. He focuses heavily on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM). Also a passionate blogger and freelance writer, he shares his insightful views regularly on HelloBloggerz . You can follow him on Google Plus or Twitter.

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5 Things You Can Learn by Drilling Down on Traffic Sources in Google Analytics

Kristi Hines — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:30 +0000

Did you know there is more to the Referral Traffic Sources in your Google Analytics than just the referral domains themselves? Here are a few things you can learn by clicking on some of the domains listed under your Traffic Sources > Sources > Referrals.

What Twitter User Really Sends You Traffic & Your Most Popular Posts on Twitter

Want to find out who is really sending the most traffic to your website via Twitter? Look no further than the t.co domain in your Traffic Sources. When you click on this, you will see the specific t.co links that have led visitors to your website.

Copy the Referral Path listed, then paste it into your browser after http://t.co so you can go to the post or page that it references. In another tab (if you don’t have this already), install the Topsy Trackbacks bookmarklet on your bookmarks toolbar. Then go to the tab with your post and click on the Topsy bookmarklet. You will now see most of the tweets for your page in Topsy.

When you get to the All posts about this link section, scroll to the bottom and click on the more link until you’ve pulled most of the tweets for your post (which could take a while, depending on how many times the page has been tweeted). Then use your browser’s Find on Page (CTRL + F) and paste in the Referral Path again. It should take you to one (or more) tweets with the t.co link that you pulled from Google Analytics. The first person who tweeted it is the source of your Twitter traffic!

In my case, it was Dave Larson of TweetSmarter that I had to thank for the most traffic from Twitter for my post on how to start a blog on WordPress.

Going back to your Referral Paths from t.co, you can also use this to see which posts on your site get the most Twitter traffic. Simply click on the Secondary dimension dropdown and select Landing Page under Traffic Sources.

This will show you the posts each t.co link references.

Pages with Traffic from Image Search

Curious what posts or pages on your website get the most traffic from Google Images search? Find out by clicking on the google.com domain in your traffic sources and then click on the /imgres Referral Path. Next, use the Secondary dimension dropdown and, again, select Landing Page under Traffic Sources.

Be sure to check out the images on those pages to see if you can use similar images for future posts / pages on your site for more image related traffic!

Guest Posts, Comments, or Crowdsourcing

When you’re looking at your Traffic Sources, it’s easy to tell which source is related to your guest posting, commenting, or sites you contribute answers to for crowdsourced posts. If you do multiple activities on one site, then you need to click on that site’s domain and drill down to the Referral Paths to see which activity gets the best results from that site.

By drilling down on my own referral traffic from Social Media Examiner, I could see that it comes from a variety of things, including one guest post, making their top blog list, a crowdsourced post, and a link left to one of my posts in the forums.

LinkedIn Shares, Groups, Answers, or Company Pages

If you are active on LinkedIn and take advantage of different things such as sharing your posts on your profile, LinkedIn groups, LinkedIn Answers, or on your company page, then you will probably want to know which of those activities bring the most traffic to your website. Click on linkedin.com in your Traffic Sources to see the following.

Here, I can see that the most traffic comes from shares within groups (/news), followed by status updates (/home, /profile/view, and /share), more group shares (/groupItem), and Answers (/groupAnswers).

Most Popular Posts on StumbleUpon

It’s tough to find things on StumbleUpon sometimes, including which posts from your own sites are the most popular on their network. If you want to see which posts on your site get the most StumbleUpon traffic, click on stumbleupon.com in your Traffic Sources, then click on the refer.php Referral Path. Next, use the Secondary dimension dropdown and, again, select Landing Page under Traffic Sources.

Now you can see which posts have driven the most StumbleUpon traffic over the last year. This is great to reference when you are determining what new content you want to create and how it will fare on the SU network. Going forward, with the latest changes to the SU networks, you will just look at any links starting with /su/ in the Referral Paths.

If you enjoyed this post be sure to check out basic Google analytics tips.

Do you go deeper into your Google Analytics Traffic Sources? What other discoveries have you found about your referral traffic?

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Kristi Hines

Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. Don't miss her Web Domination Review on Kikolani. Follow her on Twitter and Google+!

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