Archive for the ‘SEO’ Category
Press release marketing can be a pretty good strategy for building links if the application is correct. However, determining the effectiveness of these campaigns is not always cut and dry.
Setting Expectations with Press Release Marketing Campaigns
Let’s face it, not every press release that you put our is going to hit the front page of the New York Times or even the front page of Google News. Unfortunately, there’s too much going on in the world for most companies to efficiently get that kind of exposure. So why do it? Well, link building is one good reason. A simple, keyword-rich and fairly interesting press release can easily build a least a few new links for your website. While this strategy shouldn’t be the basis of most companies’ marketing strategies, it should at least be PART of the online marketing strategy.
Where to Market Your Press Releases
Now that we’ve established the fact that your press releases probably aren’t going to start a media frenzy, lets talk about where you can submit them, at least for starters. We’d recommend submitting to PRLog.org and PRWeb at a minimum. At the time of writing this post, both of these sources still have a fairly good influence on both the search engines and websites that may possible republish your press release. Keep in mind:
- Submit a slightly different version of your press release to each network
- Include a link (keyword-rich if possible) to the most relevant page of your website
Measuring Press Release Marketing Results
Aside from looking at stats like press release impressions and views, measuring the number of links created is important. Once you know the average number and quality of links that your efforts will yield, you can compare this link building strategy to your others and hopefully make better decisions with how to spend your SEO time.
A quick way to count the number of links generated from a new press release is this (this strategy works best if your website currently has fewer than 1,000 links according to Yahoo Site Explorer):
- Go to Yahoo SiteExplorer and search for your domain name (dont forget to include www.)
- Click Inlinks and then Export to TSV
- Using Microsoft Excel, open the TSV file (use “Tab Delimited”) – At this point, you’ll have an excel spreadsheet which contains most of the backlinks to your website that Yahoo is counting. The first column in the spreadsheet shows you the title tag of the linking page (we’ll use this in a minute). The second shows the linking url and last two columns you can ignore for now.
- Sort the data in the spreadsheet by column A, the Title column. Once data is sorted by title tag, you can review the list of title tags, looking for titles that match the heading of your press release. As you find title tags that match or are similar to, copy and paste the URL associated with that title tag into your browser. You will most likely see that the URL contains your press release with your hyperlinks still in tact.
The logic behind this method for measuring new inbound links assumes that:
- The website reposting your press release utilizes some or all of your press release heading in their title tag
- Yahoo has found the link
What this doesn’t tell you:
- Which websites have picked up your press release but have not used your heading to build out their title tag (We find that this is actually a good thing because many websites will display RSS feeds from the major news wires just to create content on their sites. These sites don’t typically give a link back to the original poster)
- Links that yahoo has not yet found
As I said, not a perfect method but definitely a quick way to see some of the results from your Press Release Marketing campaigns.
Tags: press release marketing
There are many search engine optimization experts that will defend (to the death) that “content is king.” And then you have the guys that say they can use off-site factors only and get a ghost page with no content to rank on the 1st page of “all-mighty Google.”
Well, interestingly enough, both of these “experts” are correct…but with some conditions.
Yes, a web page can get ranked very high based on content and on-site SEO alone, but that’s only if the competing results are very weak and there’s aren’t many “players on the field.”
Now, on the other hand, a page with weak on-site SEO and no content can get ranked high if it has tons of backlinks and inbound anchor text links, but that’s only until the websites in that market with good on-site SEO build a couple of backlinks, then it’s all over for “no content sites.”
So, it seems like the only logical solution is to first make sure that your content and on-site SEO is pristine, then you really don’t need as many inbound links to take high positions. Both content and backlinks are very important, but if you do the content and on-site part better than your competitors then you won’t have to work nearly as hard as your competitors to build backlinks.
Here are some pointers for on-site optimization factors:
#1: Keyword in the <TITLE> Tag
#2: Keyword in the URL
#3: Keyword in H1, H2 and H3 Tags
#4: Keyword in the first sentence
#5: Keyword in the LAST sentence
#6: Keyword density of about 2% to 4%
#7: At least ONE outbound link to internal page (another page within your site) with Keyword as anchor text
#8: At least ONE outbound link to REPUTABLE external page (ie: Wikipedia)
#9: Remove all excess, junk, and unrelated outbound links
#10: Add at least 1 image with ALT text set to Keyword
#11: Have bold, italic, and underline of Keywords.
#12: Minimum of 500 words of relevant content.
Having as many of these on-site SEO and content factors in place is going to dramatically increase the effectiveness of your backlinking efforts.
Talk soon,
Tommy
First of all, if you haven’t seen this video, just watch it real quick:
Now, you may be wondering, “Why? Why is this on a web design and SEO blog?”
Well, here’s the thing…
One of the most effective ways to get links is to have a VIRAL piece of content on your website!
Do you know how many new links YouTube got from this video? Well, I can’t give you an exact number because I don’t have time to do the investigative research (don’t have the “time” ha-ha you know what that really means)…but I digress…So, the point is that even if the Tube only gets 1,000 new links…wait, 1,000!? Yea, I’d venture to say that 1,000 new in-bound, NATURAL links to your website could do some good, eh?
So, I’m going to keep the message concise today. Sit down with your team (or yourself if you’re like that) and brainstorm some ways to create some viral content…I know you can do it!
If you want to get extreme, just make a sign with your website name on it and go to the next local sporting event in your running shoes 
DISCLAIMER: I’m not blatantly condoning that you do anything illegal.
Talk soon!
Tommy
Tags: SEO
Posted on Apr 21, 2010 by Tommy to SEO
So, today I wanted to talk a little bit about Google Search Operators. A lot of people don’t realize that some serious search engine optimization work can be done right in that silly little Google search bar. Now, first I want to quickly give the “official” definition: Google Search Operators are search functions that you can add to a query to search for a specific set of information. Ok, that wasn’t the official definition, but it’ll do for now.
Well, we know what Google Search Operators are, but how-the-H1-tag (haha) do we use them for search engine optimization benefits?
The idea is that you can use them bring back specific information. So, I’m going to give you an example here and explain the benefit (but I’m sure you’ll be able to see it as we go along).
Now, let’s say that you’re doing some inbound link building for your website (which you better be doing if you want Google to throw you some love) and you think to yourself, “Gosh, I sure wish I could get some .EDU links. I know how much Google loves .EDU links, and I want Google to love me.” Well, thanks to Google Search Operators, they’ve “handed out the stick to their own piñata.”
I want you to do a little test with this and tell me if it doesn’t work for you.
Go over to www.Google.com and copy/paste this into the search bar (obviously replacing the word, “keyword” with your actual keyword):
site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” – “keyword”
OMG! Look at how many opportunities just showed up for you to get links from .EDU domains. Now, I do realize that some of these links might be tagged with a “nofollow,” but they will all help you (I know from experience). If you need help on how to actually get links from these pages, just make a comment on this post and let me know.
One thing I want you to keep in mind when using these types of inbound link building methods is to avoid getting to “spammy” and covering every site with your links. Keep it limited to one per page and be a responsible link builder.
A talented and experienced SEO named Dori Friend put together a nice “cheat sheet” on the subject of Google Search Operators. Here’s the link to check it out: http://www.dorifriend.com/GoogleQueryTerms.pdf.
I hope you found this helpful in your SEO education.
Talk soon,
Tommy
Tags: google search operators, SEO
Among the necessary on-site optimization factors, building backlinks (or inbound links) is the most important
thing you can do off-site to improve your search engine rankings.
Now, there are many theories and opinions on how to build backlinks. And there are a few that work; a few that have withstood the “test of time.”
Besides gaining natural backlinks from public relations efforts or just being a nationally recognized, public company,
you do need to be actively building backlinks to your website(s).
The good ol’ fashioned “backlink request” is quite effective, but can also be…well, it IS very time-consuming and tedious work (if you would like a further explanation of the system we use for backlink requests, just post a comment and I’ll create a quick tutorial for you).
What I want to talk to you about today is something I like to call the “Coffee Filter” Strategy. Now, I’m just going to go ahead and say that I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this, and this is also a combination of other strategies I’ve learned over the years. But, the marketer in me likes to give things cool names like the “Coffee Filter” Strategy.
That being said, this strategy revolves around the idea of “caffeinating” up your existing backlinks (and the backlinks you get from now on). In other words, we’re going to build backlinks to our backlinks.
So, why “Coffee Filter?”
As marketers, SEO’s, designer’s, etc., we are pretty much obsessed with our coffee and/or tea (shout out to Tazo Awake). And, because of that fact, this illustration will be easier for you to understand.
Without the filter, you would end up with a pot full of nasty coffee grounds. However, if you had no coffee grounds, you would just have…well, hot water (and if that’s what does it for you, then by all means, be my guest).
But I think the majority of us would agree that we don’t want either of the following: 1) a delightful cup of coffee laced with ground coffee beans, or 2) a comfy cup of hot water.
That being said, the filter is what provides us with the opportunity to create better tasting, less-gritty cups of coffee.
Here’s a table of how the coffee-making relates to backlinking:
So, simply put, you bookmark, ping, and RSS aggregate (backlink to) the links pointing directly back to your site,
thus “caffeinating” the power of those links. This allows your direct backlinks to act as filter for the thousands of
bookmark and ping-type of links that are indirectly pointing back to your website.
Right about now you may be thinking that I’m full of it and this is a bunch of “hot water.”
So, let me give you a quick example of how I used this strategy in “real life” (haha).
Last week I wrote a blog post about creating gold text with Photoshop. I targeted the keyword phrase: “photoshop gold text tutorial” (which has 1,330,000 competing results). After writing the blog post, I created a Squidoo lens that allowed me to put an anchor-text, DoFollow link back to the blog post permalink. I then bookmarked both the blog post permalink and the Squidoo lens. Result? This whole week my post has been on page 1 of Google for my targeted keyword phrase and out of 1,330,000 competing results. It’s also brought 107 unique visitors to our blog since last week.
So, I encourage you to at least give this a try, put your own spin on it and find something that works. Test, test, test!
(And use Firefox.)
Talk soon,
Tommy
PS. Amazing bookmarking plug-in to help save you time (AddThis) click here to check it out. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4076
Tags: backlinks, search engine rankings, SEO
Having done a fair amount of marketing for various hotels, I’ve dealt with TripAdvisor often enough to have a pretty strong opinion about appropriate ways to interact with TripAdvisor. We’ve seen a number of clients take different approaches to implementing their own TripAdvisor stats into hotel websites and we often recommend against the practice. Today, I want to touch on the topic of why utilizing the TripAdvisor widget can possibly hurt your business with regards to both the impact it can have on your traffic and more importantly, your conversion rate. We’ll also briefly cover a few different ways for hotels to promote a good TripAdvisor ranking while minimizing or completely removing the harmful side-effects.
Helping TripAdvisor to ‘Own’ Your Brand Name
Go ahead and search for almost any hotel name on almost any search engine and you’ll probably notice that TripAdvisor.com appears in one of the first three spots. This not-so-gentle giant has done a brilliant job at competing with and sometimes even outranking hotels for searches related to THEIR OWN BRAND NAMES in the SERPs. As a result, it has become almost as important to have a good TripAdvisor rating as it is to rank well for keywords related to their hotel.
As with any search-saavy company, TripAdvisor has embedded somewhat ‘hidden’ SEO strategies in many of their product offerings, the most effective of which seems to be the infamous “free widget.” If you have been to any hotel’s website in the past few years, you’ve probably seen at least one variation of the widget. Most of the “free widgets” offered have a couple SEO friendly (for them!) things in common.
First, most of TripAdvisor’s wonderful widgets include a keyword-rich text link back to the hotel’s main listing on TripAdvisor. How does this help TripAdvisor? It provides a keyword-rich deep link using the hotel’s brand name, further improving the chances that TripAdvisor will rank highly for searches related to that hotel’s name. To be clear: Linking to TripAdvisor from your homepage, site-wide or wherever you choose display that widget helps improve the chances that TripAdvisor will compete with you for searches related to your own brand name. Additionally, the sheer volume of additional links which comes from these widgets continue to support TripAdvisor’s search domination of location specific keyword phrases.
“But I want to promote the fact that my hotel is one of the highest ranked hotels on TripAdvisor!”
Hooray for you! But highest ranked or not, using their standard widget can cause you to lose traffic to TripAdvisor by providing a link to their website. Once visitors click off your site through that link, they will be presented with a number of ads from your competitors and other travel agencies. By providing a link to your TripAdvisor page, you’re basically sending your own hard-earned website traffic to TripAdvisor will little chance of getting them back to book.
What can you do to promote your great TripAdvisor reviews without hurting your business?
- Good solution – Create your own image promotion which promotes your TripAdvisor prowess and make sure that it doesn’t link to TripAdvisor’s website. This solution is recommended for any hotel with a very good TripAdvisor rating.
- Another good solution – Don’t mention TripAdvisor at all. If your TripAdvisor reviews cause you to sit up and cry at night, it should be fairly obvious that the best move is to avoid the subject completely by saying NOTHING about TripAdvisor on your website.
- A mediocre solution [Updated] – Use an iframe to display your widget and disallow (robots.txt) the widget file for all search engines – If for some reason your hands are bound by corporate nonsense and you can’t talk sense into your superiors, this solution will make them happy and, at the same time, will tell the search engines not to pass link credit on to TripAdvisor. Note: Users will not know the difference and will still be able to leave your website to visit TripAdvisor.
While you alone cannot completely control TripAdvisor’s search impact on your business or even its ranking for your brand name, you can certainly have some impact. Think globally, act locally and help prevent TripAdvisor from controlling your hotel’s future!
Tags: hotel marketing, SEO, tripadvisor
So, Rick and I were having a conversation the other day about the many nuances of outbound links and their effect – or lack there of – on search engine rankings. Yes, we may have been travelling down the “rabbit trails” of the topic a little too far, but we did manage to derive an interesting theory out of our speculation.
Introducing the “Bread and Butter Theory of Outbound Links” by Tommy Bussey and Rick Maggio, understanding this will be the best thing you’ve learned about Search Engine Optimization since sliced bread…
Now, through the course of our discussion on this topic we journeyed down a few of the beaten paths of search engine optimization; not forgetting page rank, quantitative back linking, qualitative back linking, on page optimization and the rest of the gang. For some reason, we ended up discussing the importance – or triviality – of outbound linking.
You may have heard that linking out from your site can hurt your search engine rankings. Well, there’s not much truth to this rumor. Obviously, if you have 1,000 links from your site to web properties that encourage toddlers to play in traffic and other “less-than-reputable” topics and practices, you may experience some (sarcastic) poor search engine rankings. But linking out to other websites that are reputable will not hurt your website.
So, what is really important to know about outbound links? Well, you need to start thinking of outbound links in terms of “slices of bread.” Now, at the same time, you need to think of the authority of the sites linking back to you as “butter.” If you can consistently get links back to your site from sites with lots of authority (butter) and fewer outbound links (slices of bread) your website (slice of bread) will receive more authority (butter) and satisfy the algorithms (appetites) of the search engines in a more pleasing manner. Why? Because with less slices of bread (outbound links) there’s more butter (authority) to spread on your slice of bread (your website).
Feel free to take a look at this chart I quickly put together to illustrate the bread and butter theory
Talk soon,
Tommy
Tags: search engine rankings, SEO, THAT agency
Last time I checked, there were a few thousand Firefox plugins, many of which are geared toward web developers and SEO’s alike. For every SEO plugin that I use, I’ve probably tried 3 or 4 others out that didn’t work quite the way I need them to. Here are my 5 favorite SEO firefox plugins that make being an search engine marketer just a little bit easier.
#5 Rank Checker
Rank checker is an easy-to-use and convenient tool for quickly checking keyword rankings. I don’t honestly use this tool too often but when I need to check a series of keywords quickly, (new client research, competitive research) it comes in handy. To use this plugin, just enter a domain and list of keywords and hit Start. You can choose to check rankings on Bing, Yahoo and / or Google. Additionally, results can be stored within the program to make comparisons later.
#4 QuickJava
QuickJava is a simple plugin that allows you disable JavaScript easily. I mostly use this to check the navigation and crawlability of a website. After installing the QuickJava plugin, a Java and JavaScript symbols will appear at the bottom of your browser. Clicking on any of these symbols will toggle Java and JS on and off.
#3 Meta Description and Title on Top
This plugin has an incrediby descriptive name. Meta Description and Title on top is a simple SEO plugin that, believe it or not, displays the current page’s title and meta tag. I only recently started using this plugin (to replace another no longer compatible with FF) and have found it incredibly useful in verifying that the correct meta description have been applied to new websites before launch. Meta Description and Title on Top is a simple plugin that saves a lot of time.
#2 SEO for Firefox
SEO for Firefox is another SEO Book creation of and displays website data like links, pagerank, traffic, age and much more within Google’s search results. This one is pretty useful for doing surface-level competitive research. A plus to this plugin is that the data displayed is fully customizable so you can hide any information that you don’t need.
#1 Foxy SEO Tool
Foxy SEO Tool is probably my favorites. This plugin adds a feature-rich toolbar to the top of your browser. The toolbar provides a quick way to perform frequently repeated functions like checking inbound links, indexed pages, cached page versions, traffic stats, internet archives and much more. I definitely make use of this one throughout the day.
Tags: firefox, seo plugins
It seems almost certain that local search will become more important as Google and other search engines improve their ability to accurately display local listings when they are relevant to search queries. One of the easiest and least time-consuming things that local businesses can do to drive targeted traffic to their website is to add or verify their local listing in Google. Here’s how it’s done:
1. Search for your business – Begin by going to Google Maps and searching for your business. A good way to search is to do “[business name] near [location]“. For example, I searched for THAT Agency near West Palm Beach. When your listing appears, click more info.
2. Click Business owner?
4. Click Edit my business information and then continue.
6. Now, you’ll be taken to you business listing management screen where you’ll be asked to fill in information about your business such as the location, description, website, email, business category, hours of operation, payment types accepted, photos, videos and more. Here are some quick tips for filling in this information:
- Name – Use the business name that most of your customers or potential customers will know you by. This seems pretty obvious by for businesses that have a different legal name than ‘marketing’ name, it can cause difficulties when customers are searching.
- Description – Use descriptive keyword phrases in your business description. For example, if you sell cars in Miami, FL, you may want to use phrases like Miami car dealer, car dealer in Miami, etc.
- Phone number – Make sure your local phone number is included (even if you also have an 800 number).
- Category – choose the most relevant and specific categories that match your business.
- Photos and video – Photos and videos can make your listing more appealing. A brief video outlining your business services can be a great way to set you apart from your competition. Likewise, photos of work you’ve done (if appropriate) can also help improve your conversion rates.
- Website – Don’t forget this one! Include your website address so users can click-through for more information.
- Coupons – Entice searchers to contact by including an appealing coupon offer within your Google Local listing. Coupons are also a great way to track the success of your Google Local marketing efforts.
When you’re finished entering your business information, click the Submit button at the bottom of the screen.
7. In the final step you’ll need to verify ownership of your listing. In this step, Google gives you the choice of verifying by phone or verifying by postcard. Both are easy to do although verifying by phone is much quicker.
That’s about all there is to adding and optimizing your listing in Google Local. As time passes, you’ll be able to track results through reports which can be found in your Google Local Listing Center. Best of luck!
Tags: google local, local seo
Posted on Oct 23, 2009 by Rick to SEO
Recently, I received a call from a new search engine company who offered me a “unbelievable advertising deal” (as the salesman put it) for pay per click ads on their search engine. The salesman claimed that their new search engine was the fastest growing engine in the world, stealing millions of Google users every month. Naturally, I was skeptical and curious.
Since I had never heard of this particular search engine, I consulted Google. I searched for this company’s brand name and, as expected, their new search engine website appeared first in Google’s results. In positions 2 through 10, however, I found a number of forum and blog posts about this new search engine. I read through all of them and found one thing in common; every other site listed in the top 10 for their brand name had negative things to say about the search engine, their marketing practices and lawsuits related to their brand.
How silly, I thought. I would expect that a new search engine, especially one trying to sell advertising to other search experts, would do a better job at managing their own online reputation. Couldn’t they have guessed that I would do at least a little research prior to signing an advertising deal? Being an unknown in any industry almost guarantees that potential customers will research a particular company. Why wouldn’t this new search engine ‘clean-up’ their brand name search results before starting a new cold-calling sales campaign like the one I was just hit with?
When your customers search for your brand name, what are the top ten results they see? Hopefully, your business website appears in #1. Don’t stop there, though. What appears in positions 2 through 10? Do the results promote the positive aspects about your business or products? Are some of these results hurting your chances at gaining new customers? What can you do about it?
What is Reputation Management?
Reputation management is not about hiding your faults, but is about putting your best foot forward. Think of it like you would think of someone looking for a new job. You wouldn’t expect a job applicant to present their weaknesses on a resume or in a cover letter would you? Then why would you let the search engines present similar information to your potential customers?
Strategies for Managing Reputation
In this post, I want to review a few strategies for helping business get more of their own content and others’ positive content to appear for their own brand name searches. Of course, there are many other aspects of reputation management that aren’t covered here. Today, I want to focus on search reputation management.
Using the Social Networks
More and more, social media profiles dominate the search results for both individual and business names. You’ll see this most often when searching for an individual’s name. You’ll also see it for companies that have active profiles on given social networks. Begin by starting a profile/fan page for your business on relevant social networks. Take a little time to build out an informational profile on each network keeping in mind that this may be the first exposure that a potential client has to your business. Once the profiles are complete, link to them from your website to help improve their ranking in the search engines. Consider starting with these networks:
Press releases
Press releases are a great way to help control the SERPs for your brand name searches. If you’re not already doing so, submit press releases regularly. Make sure your brand name appears in the press release title and copy. Again, building links to these releases will help move them into top positions. Here are a few free and paid press releases websites which are good for this:
• PR Web
• PR Inside
• PR Log
Wikipedia
Wikipedia more or less owns the search engine results for countless numbers of keywords. The authority of Wikipedia makes it another good place to get listed. Often times, your Wikipedia listing will make it to the first page of search results for your business without too much effort.
To get listed on Wikipedia, you need to be ‘notable’. Is your company significant? Of course it is! Unfortunately, the editors at Wikipedia don’t always agree. There are plenty of articles to help you convince the wiki-gods that you belong. Once your listing is secured, link to it from other relevant articles in Wikipedia. This will help improve its ranking in the SERPs.
Sub domains and Websites
Have you ever Googled Google (say THAT 5 times fast!)?
What do you notice? You should see that Google’s many different websites and sub domains of google.com appear in the top results. This same affect can be seen for other major brands like Pepsi, Ford and others. If it makes sense, create addition company websites or break some of your content into sub-domains. Google will usually only return one or two pages from the same domain on any given search. By breaking your content out into sub-domains, you can bypass this limitation and can sometimes get Google to list more of your pages. Of course, breaking content into sub domains can have other significant impacts so plan this carefully.
Linking to other websites
In cases where there are positive articles (on other websites ) about your company that come close to ranking in the top 10, you can also try to help those link higher by linking to them from your own website. This is easily accomplished by creating a pres section and linking out to all the positive press about your company.
Over time, monitor the progress of each of these strategies to see if they helping move the best results into the top 10 listings for your brand name searches. You’ll notice that certain pages will naturally advance very quickly and others won’t make much progress at all. Focus your future efforts on the ones that have naturally moved up. In time, you’ll find that your new profiles, press releases and other efforts will give you more control of the top results for your brand name queries in the
Tags: reputation management
Making flowplayer.swf files play in IE where gzip is enabled
Ipad 2, get ready
THAT Agency launches hotel website for Iron Horse Hotel
2010 Social Media Statistics
THAT Agency designs and develops website for Club Safari
THAT Agency launches Scozia Insurance
NYJTL partners with THAT Agency for new website
THAT Agency launches WhyWeight
Online B2B Advertising with LinkedIn DirectAds
A Quick Way to Measure the SEO Value of Press Releases
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