TAMPA, FLORIDA– Is comparing Facebook to Google+ like comparing apples to oranges? I say it’s more like comparing apples to apples – different varieties of apples, of course.

Both are good for communicating with patients or clients, it’s just that Google+ is better for connecting with “new” ones and learning “new” things, while Facebook is a better tool for communicating with those you already “knew.”

“Facebook = People. Facebook is the way to learn what’s going on in the lives of people you already know. Google+ = passions. Google+ enables you to pursue your passions with people you don’t know,” said Guy Kawasaki, author of “What the Plus! Google Plus for the Rest of Us.”

Why is Google+ such a good tool for making New connections and learning New things?

Having (and using) a Google+ account helps increase your rank and click-through rate and gives users the opportunity to connect with others who share their passions. If your interest is in-house SEO, there’s a circle for that. If it’s ending underage drinking, there’s a circle for that. Learning black hat SEO tricks – there may be a circle for that, but we advise you not to join that one.

Circles are the heart of the Google+ experience, but Google Hangouts is another fine tool of Google, which we use often to connect with others who share Sinai Marketing’s SEO passion, like Bonnie Hixon and Rita Zamora, as you can see in our most recent video.

I see where Google+ is good for learning new things, but what about meeting new clients or patients, you say?

Let’s say you are an SEO company. There’s nothing that says one of the Google+ members in the SEO circle you just joined won’t be impressed by your activity in that circle or a recent Google+ Hangout, and ask you to do their company’s plastic surgery marketing because they’re tired of doing their own with subpar results. Watch the following video to see how Google+ Hangout can help you connect with current clients and share your expertise with others in your circle.

We all know how important being at the top of Google search results is when it comes to being found by potential clients. Google+ not only improves your click – through rate with an authorship image and additional links, but also has the ability to drastically improve your rank. Just check out this experiment where Google+ users were able to increase their rank from 16 to six using Google+ metrics alone.

Although you can increase your rank and gain new clients, connections and valuable information with Google+, Facebook is still as valuable as ever for connecting with people you know.

“Facebook is the connection between the practice, patients and community,” says our CEO Ali Husayni. “You could say it’s the human side of your business. It also doesn’t hurt that Facebook remains quite popular as a social networking site.”

Facebook allows a business to connect and interact with their patients and the friends of their patients on a personal level through sharing.

An example of Rita Zamora’s, which I feel displays this effect nicely, is when one of her clients hosted a movie night for their patients. In response to the event, patients posted things like “That was a great movie night. We loved it.” In the end, not only patients, but also friends of patients had commented on the Facebook page and created an important and lasting impression on the practice’s wall, according to Zamora.

Of course, for this to work, a business has to get their clients and patients to visit or like their page. Again, Zamora offers this great advice to business owners: “For example, if it’s at a dental practice, ask the patient as they’re leaving ‘how did we do today?’ When they say, ‘Everything was great. We love you guys’, it’s a great opportunity to tell them you have a Facebook page and it would really make their doctor’s/hygienist’s day if they left a comment for him or her there,” says Zamora.

This is a very important aspect of connecting with others as a business. Many of your patients or clients will not think to go beyond giving you a verbal compliment and conduct a Facebook search to leave you an additional comment without a nudge. I myself experienced this with the baker of my wedding cake. It was an amazing cake and I thanked and praised her work in person, but until I received a letter in the mail from her telling me what a pleasure it was to work with me and if I was happy with her work it would mean a great deal to have a comment from me on her page, the thought never crossed my mind to comment on her business’s Facebook page. I fulfilled her request that very day.

“If you are providing your clients with quality service, the odds are that they’ll be more than willing to sing your praises via a comment to your business’s Facebook page,” says Husayni.

What’s nice about these comments is that they create – like Zamora said – a lasting testament to the quality of service a business or practice provides that will be seen by all who visit the page.

As you can see, we aren’t quite ready to crown either network king in the realm of SEO, as we can’t deny the usefulness of both in the quest to gain rank, clients and connections. But if we change our minds, you’ll be the first to find out. We wish you the best in your content SEO ventures and as always, we’ll continue to keep you “in the know” when it comes to SEO.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – Top SEOs understand that a high ranking on Google depends partly on how well you’ve optimized your website for certain keywords. We’ve devoted an entire post to conducting keyword research, and you may want to check it out while you’re compiling your desired keyword list. For this post we’ll examine the difference between short and long tail keywords and discuss how you can use them to increase your exposure through SEO.

Long and Short Tail Keywords Explained
Short tail keywords are one or two word phrases, such as “Nashville pet” or “German shepherds.” These are broad and commonly searched keywords. There’s more competition for short tail keywords since they are more commonly used.

Long-tail keywords are typically three words or more, and they are more of a phrase or question than a broad description. The long tail keyword from the previous examples might be “find Nashville pet for adoption” or “adopt a German shepherd in Nashville, Tennessee.”

Which types of keywords are best for SEO purposes? The answer depends a lot on your market and the competition of your keywords. You can find out how competitive your keywords are using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. They tell me “Nashville pet” averages 14,800 monthly searches; “Nashville pet adoption” averages 1,300 monthly searches.

Long and Short Tail Keywords Analyzed
Several studies have shown long tail keywords have higher conversion rates than short tail keywords. This makes sense when you think about it. A user who searches “adopt a German shepherd in Nashville, Tennessee” is probably closer to adopting a dog than one who types “Nashville pets.”

Search Engine Watch, an SEO marketing company, conducted a telling study of short and long tail keywords specifically analyzing them for impressions, clicks, conversions and profitability.

The study leaders categorized keywords by the number of characters to keep their research organized. Keywords were broken down in intervals of five characters. Keywords between 11 and 20 characters received the most impressions and clicks at nearly 60 percent. However, keywords between 31 and 35 characters converted the most customers.

A different study published at Calculate Marketing shows the conversion rate improves as the number of words increases.

“People who make longer, more specific searches have already done their research and know exactly what they want,” says study author Alan Mitchell. “They are further along in the buying cycle so are more likely to open their wallet.”

Using Long and Short Tail Keywords for SEO
One tip to help you create long tail keywords from short tail keywords is this: don’t hit enter. Go to your Google search bar and start typing a word. Google autocompletes your search queries as you type them. To test this theory, I typed “Nashville pet” into a Google search query and didn’t hit enter. Google showed me longer keywords beneath my search bar – “Nashville pet products,” “Nashville pet rescue” and “Nashville pet adoption.” This type of research will give you an idea of what other users are searching for on the Web, which can improve, strengthen and diversify your keywords.

Though studies show long tail keywords help you rank higher, short tail keywords are still effective. . For many of you, short tail keywords like “dentistry” or “plastic surgery” are highly desirable and are extremely relevant to your businesses. Match these keywords with a location or description to make them even more helpful. “Nashville dentistry” will help improve your Google maps SEO, and “Nashville cosmetic dentistry” can further distinguish your business. Your potential customer will also assume that you offer tooth whitening or porcelain veneers because you’ve specified yourself as a cosmetic dentist. Now here’s the warning: Don’t feel like you have to add a location every time you include the word “dentistry.” This will probably annoy your human reader, and it may even cause them to abandon your website. You may have seen content so cluttered with keywords that you lose the real meaning.

Keywords should feel natural when you read them in your content. If they stick out to you, odds are they’ll stick out to your readers. Always choose your readers’ experience over the itch to add multiple long tail keywords just for search engines. Provide clear, meaningful and well-researched content, and your potential customers will find you. In other words: build it, and they will come.

If you have questions, ask! We’re here to help you decipher the murky SEO waters. Sinai Marketing can also take care of your SEO hosting needs so you can focus on satisfying your customers.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-Rand Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday episode about a potentially new ranking factor was published on Nov. 16, but two months, multiple re-readings and lots of additional research later, I’m still digesting all the information.

He originally predicted that anchor text is dying and co-citation will replace it, but later edited the title of the post to say the importance of anchor text in SEO is weakening while co-occurrence is becoming a more prominent factor in ranking well and may replace it.

Fishkin is the CEO of SEOmoz and a prominent figure in the online search marketing industry so a lot of ears perk up when he makes big predictions. This Whiteboard Friday episode became one of the most popular ones in 2012 for the Moz community. Here are a few quick definitions in case you’re not fluent in SEO speak:

Anchor text-the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink that influences the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. For example, Sinai Marketing shares search engine optimization tips , techniques and updates on its blog. The words in blue are anchor text, and they influence how the linked page ranks in search engine results.

Co-occurrence-the theory that search engines have become sophisticated enough to understand context and they rank a website well based partially on the factor that a website and certain keywords were mentioned together on another website, even though the keyword wasn’t actually hyperlinked. For example, we might mention a website about dental marketing in one of our blog posts without linking directly to the site. If co-occurrence is at work, the search engine spider would intuitively associate that website with the words we used in relation to it.

“Co-occurrence is search engines learning to think and process information the way a human would,” says Ali Husayni, an SEO expert and the founder and CEO of Sinai Marketing. “That has always been Google’s goal, and it’s why we’re constantly encouraging people to focus on creating content that is for humans too, not just search engines.”

Back to Fishkin’s Whiteboard video though. He believes we’ll start to see more co-occurrence of terms and links in search queries, in text content, and in links becoming more of a factor. This is not the complete death of anchor text, he says, but he shows that anchor text is actually diminishing as a signal and being replaced by something else.

Another blogger responded to Fishkin’s post with a lengthy and detailed article guest posted on iAcquire about what’s really going on in SERPs, find the article here.

“Rand appears to be suggesting that SEO and PR are going to converge in a way that devalues traditional anchor signals in favor of content based co-occurrence signals,” says Joshua Giardino. “Under this model, to rank well, brands will have to focus on nurturing co-occurring mentions of their brand across the Web on pages that are topically relevant to the terms for which they hope to rank.”

Giardino thinks if Fishkin is correct, that this change will represent a powerful, new content-based ranking factor, a whole new class of signals that veers away from traditional ranking factors.

Fishkin must be confident about his prediction because he also included co-occurrence in his annual list of predictions for inbound marketing and SEO for the coming year. He says co-occurrence of brands and websites combined with keyword terms and phrases will be proved to have an impact on search engine rankings through correlation data, specific experiments or a combination of both.

“All over the Web we are seeing strong evidence to suggest it is already being used by Google’s super-intelligent algorithms,” Steve Davies says on his digital marketing and SEO blog, Spotted Panda. “I certainly predict it to expand to search engines actually learning to read all blog posts, news articles, information pages and social media the same as you or I would.” Know more about this article.

Husayni says he thinks co-occurrence will eventually become an important factor but says businesses need to focus on SEO basics and building content that is relevant to their consumers right now.

“You don’t need to worry about anchor text going away any time soon,” says Husayni. “For now, it’s here to stay, but we’ll be sure to let our readers know about impending changes. For now, focus on publishing regularly on your blog about interesting, useful topics for your readers.”

Want More? If you’re interested in jumping into the diminishing anchor text, increasing co-occurrence conversation from the beginning, start by watching Rand Fishkin’s original Whiteboard Friday video, then read Bill Slawski’s response to the topic: Not All Anchor Text is Equal And Other Co-Citation Observations. His article is a great read, but be prepared for a very technical article. The comments section on the article can help you get a better grasp on some of the ideas since Slawski seems to break down concepts into more basic terms. Joshua Giardino published a lengthy piece responding to both, and it’s chock full of research; just as technical but a bit easier to read: It’s Not Co-Citation, But It’s Still Awesome.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – Adding quality content to your blog is one of the best ways to reach the first page of Google. Our CEO Ali Husayni explains why.

“Let’s start with the basics of why search engines were built: because text existed on the Internet in an unorganized fashion,” Husayni says. “Search engine spiders indexed, organized and provided the text in an easy-to-use format for their users.”

Our Web SEO company uses WordPress for many of our clients because it has built in features made for search engine optimization. Today I want to discuss the difference between two common WordPress features – categories and tags – and how you use them effectively.

When you create a post in WordPress, you should see several boxes to the right of the text box where you enter the text and media of your new post. The boxes on the right are titled “Publish,” “Tags” and “Categories.”

Categories and tags both help search engines and users sort the content on your site, but categories apply to broader themes and tags describe more detailed keywords relating to specific posts.

WordPress Categories
Bloggers can use a hierarchy of categories and nest children categories beneath the parent categories. For instance, if your blog is about dentistry and orthodontics, you may want the category of your new post to be “dentistry.” But there are several types of dentistry, including cosmetic dentistry, preventive dentistry, neuromuscular dentistry and restorative dentistry. These could be nested under the “dentistry” category to further define a post.

You can even go to the category widget and describe what each category is about. You can find this from your dashboard. On the left side of your dashboard you should see headings like “Dashboard,” “Store,” “Posts” and “Media.” Click “Post,” and you should see “Categories” beneath that tab. This lets you manage your categories, add new or delete existing categories, change the hierarchy and add category descriptions. Any time you have a chance to define or describe your pages you should do it. These descriptions should be relevant, clear, concise and rich with your highest desired keywords.

Many people ask how many categories a good site needs, and the answer isn’t cut and dry. As you add more content to your site, the diversity of your content will likely grow. Add and manage your categories as needed. At first you may only need “dentistry,” but in a few weeks you may need to add nested categories beneath it to differentiate the posts. You don’t need 30 categories if you only have three posts live on your site. Make your site structure clear and simple.

Finally, categories are mandatory, and tags are optional.

WordPress Tags
The theme you’ve chosen for your blog likely decides where your tags are listed for each post. Some blogs contain tag clouds on the sidebar that show users an array of tags used for your blog. The visitor can click on any tag in the tag cloud to see posts tagged with that keyword.

Adding tags to your new post is simple. Just type keywords into the tag bar and separate them with commas. Tags can be any length and any keyword you choose, but to work best they should be descriptive and relevant. For instance, if Dr. Frank P. Dentist adds a new post to his site about tooth whitening, he should choose the parent category “dentistry” and the nested category “cosmetic dentistry.” The tags might be: tooth whitening, professional whitening, Zoom! whitening, in-office whitening and whiter smile. You can use as few or as many keywords as you like.

You can also add descriptions to your tags. Look beneath the “Posts” tab on the left side of your dashboard. For the tag “Zoom! whitening,” our dentist may add a short description of that procedure.

Categories and Tags
When used correctly, categories and tags work together to give search engines and users detailed information about your blog and individual posts. It’s also important to note the categories and tags don’t replace metadata within your post.

Our SEO services in the USA include content creation and WordPress content distribution. We understand how to best use the category and tag fields to optimize your blog.

At Sinai Marketing we’ve helped a variety of companies succeed in improving their Google rankings. We’ve excelled in dental and orthodontic marketing, plastic surgery marketing and ecommerce marketing for various clients, and we are confident we can bring any business to the top of Google.

How do you use categories and tags on your WordPress blog? What other WordPress tips would you like to learn?

TAMPA, FLORIDA– A follower of our Sinai Marketing blog recently asked a great question that deserved a post to fully explain the answer.

The question: “My website has a lot of completely unique content I’ve either created myself or outsourced. But it seems a lot of it is popping up all over the Internet without my agreement. Do you know any solutions to help protect against content from being stolen? I’d really appreciate it.”

You must do your part to safeguard your content while keeping the legitimate reader in mind, because as unjust as it seems, thieves will always find a way to steal content. However, be aware that there are pros and cons to safeguarding your content so, pick your poison wisely.

Here are a few Sinai Marketing approved ways you can protect your original content and best SEO strategies from being stolen:

• Disable right click functions
• Use a Tynt plugin
• Switch to partial RSS feeds
• Add a footer to your RSS feed
• Watermark your images

One way sploggers- those who create spam blogs- steal your content is by copying and pasting it onto their site or into a splog. The following two practices may help deter them by making it difficult and less beneficial to steal your content.

Disable right click/text selection
Pros- Although a savvy copycat is capable of bypassing this inconvenience, it may slow them down or discourage them altogether. Most users won’t be able to simply copy and paste.

Cons- Neither will the good guys. The inability to copy and paste can also frustrate and inconvenience those who would typically share your content properly, and provide you with recognition and quality backlinks. Techy bloggers who often provide snippets such as codes or other information designed to be borrowed make it difficult for readers to use that helpful information when right click is disabled. Another problem is that Tynt plugins or programs can’t be used when right click features are disabled.

Use a Tynt plugin
Tynt is a tool that automatically creates a link back to your content whenever it’s copied and pasted. Tynt monitors backlinks created, page views, images copied, words copied, how many times content left your site and more.
Pros- You increase the traffic to your site by providing readers of your copied- legitimately or not- content with a link back your original post or site. Whenever readers use that link, voila- a new backlink. Plus, it’s free.
Cons- You have to enable right click/text selection for this technology to work.

One of the most common ways content gets stolen is by thieves who use scraping software, which targets and steals the content you provide on your RSS feed. The following two methods deter RSS feed scraping.

Switch from full to partial RSS feeds
You can do this in WordPress by switching your feed from “Full text” to “Summary” under the reading section of your settings, which is found on the dashboard.
Pros- You prevent scraping software from stealing your content or article in its entirety. Also, your “human” readers will have to visit your site and its blog to read the entire article, which means you’ll benefit from the time they spend on your site and hopefully, their participation in discussions.
Cons- Many active blog readers use RSS readers to avoid the inconvenience of having to read a summary, decide if it’s something interesting and then click through to read the full article. By requiring them to click through, you may lose them as a subscriber or participating reader because they aren’t interested in the hassle.

“Those who are interested in your content on their RSS feed will share or click through to comment if your content is compelling,” says Sinai CEO Ali Husayni, a Google search optimization expert who offers SEO consulting. “If they unsubscribe to your feed because it’s a hassle, there is no chance they will read, participate or share your content at all.”

Add a footer to your RSS feed
Here’s a yoast plugin for WordPress that will allow you to add a footer to your RSS feed, which will prove your authorship.
Pros- People reading your stolen content will know that it is being used without your permission.
Cons- It doesn’t prevent thieves or scrapers from stealing your content.

Text isn’t the only type of content that gets stolen; images can be just as vulnerable if you aren’t using the following tool.

Watermark your images
A watermark is a faint image that helps to identify the file’s authorship by containing copyright information.
Pros- If your image is illegally shared, it’s obvious to viewers who will either discredit the thief or report the stolen image to you, the owner/copyrighter.
Cons- Watermarks aren’t always impossible to remove and may cheapen your style by making you appear paranoid, especially if it’s an image that others will have no value in sharing. And since a good watermark needs to be in a visible area so it can’t easily be cropped out, the image may be useless as a visual aid because the watermark is too distracting and becomes the focal point.

While these tools may help deter copycats and their technology, you have to accept the fact that your content likely will get used without your permission at some point if it’s placed on the Internet.

Stick around because in the near future we will address some tools and procedures you can use to locate content that has been stolen, and retrieve it or receive proper recognition. If you can’t wait until then, you might consider taking advantage of our SEO consulting services.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO- Recently one of our clients started losing his #1 positions we helped him achieve. Slowly, his ranks dropped to #5, then #7, and so on until he was dropped to the second page. He constantly complained that our team was incompetent and we needed to do more to get his ranks back.

This phenomenon is rare in our company and we couldn’t figure out why this was happening. Finally, the truth was revealed: our client was “helping” with the SEO process by doing what he “read” on the Internet.

What he had read was outdated and now wrong. We quickly identified his SEO missteps and made the necessary to corrections to restore his rankings. However, during the two to three months our client was busy “helping” us, he was missing out on the opportunity to continue his reign at the top position of Google for his keywords.

If you are hands-on with your site’s SEO or want to help your SEO company and make the process faster, you should be aware of what is good for SEO and what is bad. Beware of the following techniques and know that they WILL damage your rankings:

1. Reciprocal Linking
   Links are the backbone of your site’s SEO success. Everyone knows that without back-links, your site cannot rank well on Google. There are dozens of ways to get links for your site, but you should be aware that reciprocal linking is a practice that has been looked down upon by Google for many years now.
2. Buying back-links
   This is a big no-no. If you participate in any “scheme” to buy links for your site, including what are called “sponsor listings,” you will sign yourself up to be penalized by Google. Stay away from paying anyone to place a link to your site.
3. Using your keywords as text-links
   We know that if you want to rank well on Google for a particular keyword, you need to have that keyword as text link from sites that link to yours. But overdoing this WILL PENALIZE your site for that particular keyword.
4. Over-optimization
   Anything that looks unnatural to the human eye or to Google’s algorithm is bad SEO practice. There are many examples of over-optimization, but here are a few:
• Keyword stuffing
• Redundant blog tags
• Redundant image tags
• Same header and title tags
5. Multiple Google profiles
   Having your Google profile is a must, but if you have multiple Google profiles or Google Places accounts, you will certainly damage your rankings on Google.
6. Plagiarism
   We all learned in school that plagiarizing results in an “F.” But for some reason, we think copying someone else’s text and putting it on our site is OK. This is very true in the case of e-commerce sites. Most have products that use the same description as the manufacturer or another competitor’s site. After the Google Panda update(s), sites that are plagiarizing are no longer ranking well. So, hire a copywriter and re-write your site’s content, even if it has 10,000 different products. That’s the only way your SEO efforts will succeed.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – Building links to and from your site is a large part of search engine optimization. Googlebots, the computer programs that crawl and index websites, know what to crawl partly because of links.

There are two kinds of links – outbound and inbound. Outbound links are easy to control, as they go from your site to other sites on the Web. Inbound links, those that point from other sites to your site, are harder to achieve. Inbound links are also more important in Google’s ranking algorithm; more inbound links from respected sources means more trust built for your website.

A successful link building campaign is one of the most important search engine optimization services that SEO firms offer. Your SEO expert can help you design a link building campaign that meets your needs and your budget.

Creating Quality Content
The most organic way to gain quality inbound links is to create content worthy of sharing. Well-researched, well-written content will take you a long way. Google Webmaster Tools reveals the most effective way to gain inbound links, and in theory, it’s not difficult.

“The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community,” according to Webmaster Tools. “The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”

Having good information to link to will make your link building campaign easy and natural. We’ve discussed ideas for quality content generation as well as guest blogging ventures, so check those out if you’re feeling the perils of writer’s block. Also remember that content isn’t restricted to typed text. You can generate relevant content in the form of video tutorials, photos or podcasts, but be diligent in tagging these forms of content correctly so Google can find and index them.

Action: Create a content creation schedule. Think outside the box, and post regularly. Commit to something you can handle; new content posted once a month might be good for the beginning, and then you could graduate to every-other-week, and then weekly.

Gaining Links
There are many ways to gain links that point to your website. First, you can submit your site to directories. Some are free and others charge a fee, but adding your site to directories is the first step to gaining inbound links. Other ways to gain links include sponsoring an event, guest blogging, holding contests or giveaways and sharing content across social networks. Reach out to other bloggers in your industry, comment on their posts thoughtfully and become part of a conversation. Let your content work for you by writing about timely subjects in your industry. You can also write about major news topics as long as you relate them to your business; you don’t want to get too far off topic and lose your customers’ trust.

We’ve discussed how to get links from .edu and .gov websites, though that isn’t an easy feat. It’s been debated as to whether Google gives higher credibility in their ranking algorithm for this type of link, but it’s certain that users find these sites more credible than a .net or a .com in many instances. Sites ending in .edu and .gov are educational, scientific or governmental websites.

But there are other sites outside of these that are deemed credible. A site with high traffic, such as a major news organization or a widely read blog, will help your link gain more credibility.

Action: Submit to directories. Make a list of relevant websites and blogs in your industry. Brainstorm ways to get a link from these trusted sites.

The Importance of Anchor Text
We’ve dedicated an entire article to anchor text before. Anchor text is the displayed text that is hyperlinked to another website. Sometimes you can’t control your anchor text, but other times you can. Make sure the word or phrase linked to your site is meaningful. This could be a keyword relevant to your business, such as “Nashville copywriter”, or it could be the name of your business. Anchor text that uses the phrase “click here” isn’t helping Google rank your website much. Anchor text that includes specific, keyword-oriented phrases will help Google understand what your website is about. But be aware that repeating your keywords could also hurt your rankings.

Action: Create a list of keywords relevant to your business. Brainstorm ways to create a link to your website using those keywords as anchor text.

Measuring Your Success
All of this link building and content creation work is to get you to the first page of Google. Now that you’ve implemented a link building campaign, it’s time to measure your success. You can use Google Analytics to track your traffic.

Master Google’s CEO Ali Husayni uses Open Site Explorer to determine which sites are linking to certain URLs and how they’re linking to them. Open Site Explorer even lets you see what anchor text is used to link to your site. Alexa and Bing also have tools for users to count and analyze backlinks. If you noticed an increase in traffic since you’ve implemented your campaign, it’s fair to say the work is paying off.

Action: Find a link-analysis site you like and learn its ins and outs. Measure your traffic sources with Google Analytics, or another analytics website. Revisit your link building campaign every month to see where you can make improvements.

Have you created a link building campaign for your company? How have your efforts paid off, and how did you measure your successes?

ORLANDO, FLORIDA—It’s pretty common that at least a couple of the comments left on a blog post on our site say, “Hey, can you give me some tips for my site?”

Our entire blog is dedicated to helping people learn about SEO, giving tips for better websites, and keeping them updated on the latest industry news, so their comments are a bit puzzling to me. Did they actually read the post? Are those comments just spam?

But I understand some readers may not have the time or tenacity to wade through the archive to find what they need, so I decided put together a post that people can use as a resource (or something I can link to when they ask) to learn about SEO. I’ve combed through the archives for you and linked to a few—ok, a whole bunch—of great articles that will get you on your way to better rankings and more traffic to your site.
Not all our subscribers have an SEO background, so I separated the links into different levels of expertise. Check it out to see if there are gaps in your SEO campaign.

Someone said I should do SEO for my website, but I don’t know what SEO is.
If that sounds like where you’re starting from, welcome to the SEO world. You might be interested in investing in SEO coaching to get your business a jump-start.  With coaching, one of our experts helps you improve your site while teaching you how to do SEO yourself. There are full service SEO packages if you prefer to completely outsource it.  If you’re just interested in reading up on it, I’d recommend you start with the basics like what SEO is, common mistakes and how to steer clear of shady SEO companies.

1. You might be skeptical of search engine marketing altogether, which is pretty common, but you need it and our seo article explain why.
2. Search engine optimization, or SEO, can sound like a different language when you’re just getting started. This article describes how Google gets information from your website and how they know where to rank it in search engine results.
3. There is no “secret formula” to search engine optimizing a website, but our CEO Ali Husayni has written about the method he uses to get clients results: content, relevancy and popularity.
4. If you’re going to outsource for SEO services, know that there are scummy companies that will try to rip you off. Follow the guidelines in this post to find a reputable firm that will make your investment worthwhile.

I know a little bit about SEO. Maybe.
Chances are you are probably looking for the first few steps toward making your website more search engine friendly but aren’t sure where to start. Our SEO experts recommend starting with on-page optimization techniques like fixing any problems with your website’s code and making it easy for search engine spiders to index your site. We offer free SEO that covers many of these on-page optimization techniques and SEO coaching if you’d rather learn to do it yourself.

1. Take steps toward better rankings by fixing header tags, sitemap, navigation, 404 errors, alt image info and metadata.
2. Learn what trackbacks and pingbacks are and why they,re valuable for your site.
3. Read up on how to optimize anchor text for your website.
4. Find out how fast your site loads and how to fix slow times so you aren’t losing traffic.
5. Rid your site of all duplicate content.
6. Here is article that tells you how you should not under any circumstance acquire links.
7. Heed the advice in this article and avoid the mistakes other people have made when optimizing their sites.

My site has been optimized, but I’m not ranking well.
It sounds like you may be thinking of SEO as a one-time deal.  According to Husayni, on-page optimization is only five to 10 percent of what SEO is today.  Google has changed the game and your website has no chance of ranking well for competitive keywords if you’re not working on getting credible links to your site, developing high-quality content and building your brand on social networks. If you need help doing those things, sign up for a consultation with an expert from the Sinai Marketing team.

1. You have to have an embedded WordPress blog.
2. Don’t assume your business doesn’t have a lot to write about. This post is guaranteed to help you come up with plenty of topics for your blog.
3. Don’t post junky content though. You have expertise to share and this is how to write great content and get people to read it.
4. Getting listed on directory submission sites and started on Google+ is a must.
5. Make sure you’ve marked your territory, established authorship and started working on your brand.
6. Organic SEO will get you traffic eventually, but you’ll have to help the process along by getting your content out there. There are traditional methods like press release  and article distribution sites, but don’t forget about the less conventional ones.
7. Links matter. A lot. But they’re not all created equal. Focus on getting good links and stay away from this kind.

My rankings tanked or are erratic, and I’m looking for an explanation.
Fluctuations are bound to happen because Google is always updating the search engine algorithm.  Unlike the cute zoo animals their names may bring to mind, Panda and Penguin were major updates that shook up the SEO world and were designed to improve the quality of search results. You might have a problem due to that.  Another reason your website might have a problem due to poorly written code, black-hat techniques, or duplicate content.

When you need troubleshooting help, SEO consulting can be exactly what you need.  A consultant gives you short-term help to analyze the problem and make recommendations for how to fix it.

1. See the trends and bigger picture of your website traffic by setting up Google Analytics.
2. Learn more about Panda, which has 21 updates so far and continues to be updated almost every month.
3. As the algorithm evolves, some SEO techniques become no-no’s that Google will penalize you for using when you’re caught. Find out white hat seo and black hat seo.
4. Keep up with the latest updates to the algorithm by following SEO blogs like the ones this article talks about.

I’m ready for more advanced techniques.
If you’re sure you’ve taken care of all the other stuff, forge ahead into even more ways to improve your site, build your brand, increase traffic and boost your conversion rates.

1. Interviews of prominent SEO figures can help you track trends and adopt new techniques early.
2. Interacting online using social media can be a new frontier for some business owners, but it’s definitely essential for SEO success.
3. Learn how to improve keyword research and copywriting.
4. With the explosion of mobile search, invest some time and effort to do mobile SEO well.
5. Online merchants can take on ecommerce SEO with this open-source, search engine friendly, e -commerce product.

Like its title, this is only an SEO primer not a comprehensive list, but hopefully it helps some people make their websites better and add to their client base. What other topics would you like to hear more about? I’ll do the heavy-lifting for you and find an article that addresses it.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-Google has been including more and more social signals into how they rank websites in search results. They’ve been pushing their social network Google+ extensively too, but it looks like all this could be leading up to a bigger shift in their algorithm that makes these social markers even more important.

Many of the bloggers in the SEO community have been talking about authorship, suggesting that it is building up to something major, and warning that people who fail to get on board will be at a disadvantage when it happens.

I recently did a post about Google authorship and why you’re already behind if you don’t have it.  The gist is that Google authorship is a way to connect the content you create to your Google+ profile no matter where it lives. Claiming your content provides the searcher with additional information right from the search results, and it has a few other perks too.

What could this be leading up to?
If you listen to what others who watch the industry trends are saying, this is building up to AuthorRank, a way to inform PageRank and enable Google to rank high-quality content more appropriately. According to AJ Kohn, who runs an online marketing firm specializing in search engine optimization marketing, it could be more disruptive than all of the Panda updates combined.

“If what he says is true, companies that wait to act until it happens will be too late,” says Ali Husayni, our resident expert SEO consultant and CEO. “The impact could be so big that people who haven’t done anything to prepare might as well have been penalized. Companies need to be proactive starting now and build AuthorRank for the people who contribute content to their websites.”

How will AuthorRank work?
At this point, mostly everything is speculation, but this is how some Google SEO experts are analyzing the clues. Kohn, who made the bold statement about AuthorRank versus Panda, says that combined with the web of people and the web of links, this change can create a more savvy view of trust and authority that will be used to rank search results.

This is my best translation of all that.

The idea behind AuthorRank has been in the works for a while now. Just one of the patents Google applied for related to this is from May 2011, but that was actually a continuation of a string of applications dating back to 2005.  Learn more about it.

Their mission as a search engine has been to provide people with the most timely, most relevant search results possible by using an algorithm that is constantly being tweaked to think and act like a real person would. Obviously, an algorithm isn’t a person though and that makes it difficult for it to determine the quality of content since that can be quite subjective. Every time Google changes the algorithm to fix a search quality problem, spammers find a way to manipulate it or work around it, hence Matt Cutts’ job security.

It would make sense that Google wants a more concrete way to help the algorithm figure out what sites deserve to be ranked well in their search results. Read through the patent, and you see that they’ve had the framework for it. Last summer, they rolled out Google+, which is a platform that establishes people and companies identities. And now there is authorship, which is a way to verify who is creating what.

Add it all together, and it appears to be a way to identity what site or which person is responsible for content, assign the content or person a score or AuthorRank and combine that with all the other factors they use when ordering results of a search. Better score? Better rank.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google working AuthorRank into their algorithm soon,” says Husayni. “Adding it makes sense. Plus, all the clues are there-the push for more social interaction, authorship, and the ongoing efforts to measure site trust and authority.”

What have you heard about authorship and AuthorRank? Do you think this is the next big change for the search engine algorithm? Share your thoughts.

TAMPA, FLORIDA—This is a post for all the newbies to the search engine optimization world.

I recently sought out other respected SEO firms and industry leaders in addition to Master Google to gain a clearer understanding of it. My most recent enlightening experience came from an October Q-and-A webinar with Rand Fishkin and Darmesh Shah. Now I’m sharing answers to the questions I found most helpful:

1. What are the top three things businesses are doing wrong regarding SEO?

For one, they aren’t using Master Google. Of course, they didn’t say this, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it!

At the top of the list is trying to discover the perfect algorithmic fit and focusing on it, as opposed to focusing on the customer’s wants and needs. This method may also be harmful since the past 30 to 40 Google updates have sought to fight it.

Your time would be better spent creating quality content that caters to your customers, Shah says.

Another mistake is targeting the most searched topics and keywords instead of focusing on a specific niche. Focused keywords have less competition and provide greater return.

Building links instead of earning them is number three on the list. Instead of paying sites for links or linking to useless domains, put great and insightful content on your site that people will share.

In SEO, content is king. Quality content must be created and that takes time and effort. There are no shortcuts.

2. What is the best way to measure the success of your SEO campaign?

If you’re a B2B company, your ranking means close to nothing if clicks aren’t translating to customers. It’s helpful to know which words you rank for and how those ranks hold up, but a better method is to determine business value. For example: search traffic led to this amount of customers who ended up spending this amount of money. It’s likely you’ll find that your investment has paid off like Dr. Jennifer Eisenhuth, a Master Google client.

Peter Eisenhuth, who handles marketing for Dr. Eisenhuth’s practice, says they saw a 500 percent increase in new patient exams that were results of search traffic. He was so pleased with his results that he started a new practice and again hired Master Google to do the SEO.

This method is less accurate if you have a small business where word of mouth is a substantial contributor to customer flow. Randkin suggests using your contact or hours of operation page as a conversion, since typically only people who plan to visit a business care about its hours. This method isn’t perfect, but it gives you something to go on.

3. How important are blogs and their use of keywords?

Using keywords in blogs is still important. Randkin suggests writing a blog with good content and a catchy title, then searching for a relevant keyword that can be inserted with minor alterations.

Another thing he suggests is every other week, take a highly searched keyword or phrase and write a fabulous article that covers the topic “to a T.”

At Master Google, we use blog posts as a means for providing new, quality content for our customers on a regular basis. That’s why I found it odd that the amount of new blogs being developed on the Internet has dropped drastically. And with social media sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all sharing or linking to blogs, more people than ever are reading them.

This translates to less competition and more eyeballs. If you don’t have a blog, you are missing out on a great opportunity to build quality links.

If after this, you still feel like you’re drowning in a sea of misunderstanding, Master Google is always there to toss out a lifeline. When it comes to SEO, at Master Google, one man’s burden is another’s passion.