NASHVILLE, TN – For many businesses, adopting social media is new and scary. You’ve probably already caught on to Facebook, and some businesses use Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and LinkedIn. I’ve gone into more detail about social media, especially Google+ and Facebook, and how these outlets affect SEO.

Social media helps like-minded people stay connected to issues they care about. Now that you have a profile, you want people to like you and follow you. You want to engage your viewers to comment and share your posts. Social media provides a space to share all those blog posts you’ve created for your search engine optimization campaign.

Be Useful
Share and discuss relevant content. Staying on topic will help you stay neutral, as most businesses don’t involve religion or politics directly. Content is king, both on your blog and on your social media outlets. Posts that your viewers find helpful, interesting or new will be commented on and shared. Posts that are poorly written or confusing will be ignored, or worse – commented on and shared for negative reasons.

Be Active
If you don’t have time to be active on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and LinkedIn, don’t set up profiles for each one. Each social network has different purposes. Research these outlets to see which best fits your company’s goals, and set up a profile on the site or sites you will use often.

When followers reach out to you, respond! Comment on your followers’ posts and let them know that you’re here, and you’re human. Also, don’t (always) respond to your massive customer base. Remember social media is about individuals.

Respond to Individuals
It may be tempting to use social media solely to share all of your articles, but that behavior won’t engage or entice your followers. It’s definitely okay to share your own articles, but remember that people want a conversation on social networks, not a one-sided promotion venue.

Recently the insurance company Progressive received some heat on Twitter. Whoever runs the Progressive Twitter account decided to respond to these messages defending their position. These tweets were copied, and the identical tweet was sent to each responder. Twitterverse (that’s the Twitter universe, guys) found those duplicated tweets to be insensitive and tacky.

The handling of the social media wasn’t ideal. Respond to individuals as much as you can, especially when your followers are criticizing your business decisions.

Not only do you need to respond to individuals, you need to respond quickly.

Be Quick
Online social interactions happen fast, fast, fast. You probably see this if you have a Twitter account and you’re following more than, say, 30 people. Your timeline will be full if you follow close to 100 people, and it’s easier to miss things not tweeted directly to you with a Twitter handle (@heyjessicabates) or through direct message (DM).

University of California Urvine professor Judith Olson talked with Mashable journalist Greg Ferenstein about how to gain trust online. When we can’t hear a person’s inflection or see his body language, how do we build trust?

“Olson finds that when only text is available, participants judge trustworthiness based on how quickly others respond,” Ferenstein writes. “So, for instance, it is better to respond to a long Facebook message ‘acknowledging’ that you received the message, rather than to wait until there’s time to send a more thorough first message. Wait too long and you are likely to be labeled ‘unhelpful,’ along with a host of other expletive-filled attributions the mind will happily construct.”

Well said, Ferenstein. Respond quickly and thoughtfully, or not at all. I’ll reiterate this point: be realistic about how much social media your company can handle. Don’t commit to social profiles that you don’t have time to manage well.

Be Neutral
Social media users can easily get into heated debates online, and the anonymity that social media sometimes has almost encourages that behavior. But for businesses, social media networks are avenues to gain trust, engage followers and hopefully spark new business.

Do not use your business social media accounts to discuss your personal beliefs. You’ll only risk alienating your customers.

Be Respectful In Your Business
Followers may be talking about you online. Someone who ate at your restaurant or visited your practice could share their experience online with their virtual friends. The best way to keep a respectable online reputation is to keep a good real life reputation. Make sure your customers are satisfied. If they are unhappy, try your best to rectify the situation. Stay professional in your business and on your social media feed.

Thanks for reading, and have fun engaging with your social media followers.

I came across this article and its proposition is rather scary:

“Google doesn’t care for organic search results and its Penguin update was designed to drive up its Adwords revenue…”

There exists an obvious conflict of interest within Google’s universe. On one hand, Google is Google because of its organic search results. On the other hand, their primary source of income is Adwords. 
So, which is more important in Google’s eyes?

The proposition further explains that when Google updates its algorithm, businesses that enjoy steady revenue by being placed high on Google organic search feel the pinch when they drop. The next most logical step for them is to turn to their Adwords campaigns until they get their organic results back up and BOOM… Google’s revenue goes up.

Nice theory.

However, Matt Cutts has announced over and over again that Google’s anti-spam team has no affiliation whatsoever with its Adwords and marketing teams. They don’t step on each others’ toes. Matt Cutts and his team’s job is to make sure black-hat SEOs are kept at bay by always improving Google’s algorithm – lately by Penguin.

To me, Matt Cutts’ assertion makes sense. If Google penalizes sites that rank well simply to promote its Adwords side of business and increase its revenue, soon the search results will not be as solid and strong as they are now. That will result in the competition (Bing, Yahoo!) gaining ground in the search market – something catastrophic for Google.

And Google being the smartest of the three search engines is not going to risk its long-term dominance over a one-time hike in revenues.

With all of this said, I’m not going to argue that algorithmic updates have not affected Google’s revenue increase. It makes sense if they do. But that’s not Google’s anti-spam team’s intention when they introduce a new algorithm update. It is only a side effect of it.

Looking at our clients’ results before and after Panda and Penguin proves my point further. The only clients of ours who dropped in the search results were those who had SEO issues either with duplicate content or shady link-building tactics (from other SEO providers in the past). By fixing those issues, we were able to place them back up on the organic search results.

What are your thoughts?

EVERGREEN, COLORADO – The Panda algorithm (named after Navneet Panda of Google) is an extremely significant part of Google’s overall ranking algorithm. The main goal of Google Panda updates is to provide users with a superior quality search experience and remove poor-quality content from the SERPs. Every year, Google updates its ranking algorithm 500-600 times. Panda updates are also among those. The first Panda algorithmic update was rolled out in February. Until now, Google has updated its Panda 19 times.

Here’s an overview of all the Panda algorithmic updates that Google has released so far.

#1. Panda 1.0 [February 24, 2011]
The purpose of this algorithmic update was to deal with (read penalize) sites that had shallow content. The update hit “content farms” (which included some of the most popular article submission sites) really badly, resulting in a huge loss of keyword rankings. About 12 percent of sites were affected.

#2. Panda 2.0 [April 11, 2011]
This Google update was specific to all English language search results. Later, it was released on a global level. The update impacted around 2 percent of all keyword searches in the United States.

#3. Panda 2.1 [May 10, 2011]
Being a minor one actually, this search update impacted far fewer sites, as compared to the previous updates. Google didn’t reveal the impact data on this algorithmic update.

#4. Panda 2.2 [June 16, 2011]
According to Google, this update aimed at penalizing scraper or duplicate content sites. After this update was launched, many webmasters witnessed an improvement in their keyword rankings while others faced sudden drops.

#5. Panda 2.3 [July 23, 2011]
This update was rolled out by Google to distinguish between high quality and poor quality sites. As a result of this update, many sites gained in terms of search rankings on Google.

#6. Panda 2.4 [August 12, 2011]
This update was actually an international one. It was at this time that Google Panda update was released for all international languages with exceptions including Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The update impacted around 6-9 percent of queries for non-English indices.

#7. Panda 2.5 [September 18, 2011]
This was a mysterious one, as Google didn’t reveal as to what this specific Panda update was aimed at. All Google said is that the update was one of the 500 changes that Google rolls out each year. The algorithmic update resulted in huge loss of rankings for many sites.

#8. Panda 2.5.1 [October 9, 2011]
According to Matt Cutts, this update was only Panda-related flux. Therefore, it was a minor update that impacted less than 2 percent of all queries.

#9. Panda 2.5.2 [October 13, 2011]
It was again a minor update to the Panda 2.5 update of September 18, 2011. There were reports of losses and recoveries after Google rolled out this algorithmic update.

#10. Panda 3.0 [October 19, 2011]
Popularly referred to as the “Unnoticed Update,” it was actually a rectification update. Sites that were mistakenly or wrongly hit by the previous Panda algorithmic updates were given back their rankings.

#11. Panda 3.1 [November 18, 2011]
According to Google, it was a minor update. Google officials tweeted that it was only a minor data refresh and impacted less than 1 percent of queries.

#12. Panda 3.2 [January 18, 2012]
A data refresh again! Google officials explained that this was also a minor update similar to the last one, i.e. Panda 3.1. The update was actually meant to address the discrepancies (cross-language refinements, related search relevance, image search improvement) with the last updates.

#13. Panda 3.3 [February 27, 2012]
The confirmation of this Google Panda update came along with the announcement of 40 search updates that happened in February. The goal of this update was to bring more accuracy and sensitivity to the Panda algorithm. With this update, the age-old link analysis method was turned off by Google. In addition, local search results were improved.

#14. Panda 3.4 [March 23, 2012]
With this update, low-quality websites were once again massively targeted by Google. According to Google’s official tweet, this algorithmic update impacted around 1.6 percent of queries. Though it was basically a minor update, it was around this time that blog networks (like SEO Link Vine and Build My Rank) were hit. Webmasters who were using such blog networks to accumulate backlinks were faced with sudden drop in their site’s search rankings.

#15. Panda 3.5 [April 19, 2012]
Low quality content was on Google’s radar once again. Due to this algorithmic update, a lot of sites lost as well as many gained in terms of search rankings on Google. Examples of sites that increased their search visibility include spotify.com, observer.com, menshealth.com, slideshare.net, technspot.com and usnews.com. Losers included cubestat.com, similarsites.com, merchantcircle.com, newsalloy.com, aboutus.org, appbrain.com and ticketscity.com among others. [Find the complete list here.]

#16. Panda 3.6 [April 27, 2012]
It was launched just eight days after the last update, so it was unexpected. Google said this was a minor data refresh and didn’t impact queries (or sites) on a large scale. Reports about loss in rankings were noted.

#17. Panda 3.7 [June 8, 2012]
Basically a data refresh, this algorithmic update impacted less than 1 percent of queries in the United States and 1 percent globally.

#18. Panda 3.8 [June 25, 2012]
Google tweeted that it was also a basic refresh update, which means they only re-ran the Panda algorithm again. The refresh resulted in an impact of only 1 percent of queries worldwide.

#19. Panda 3.9 [July 24, 2012]
It was a new data refresh. So, there were no massive changes in algorithmic signals. Google revealed in a Twitter post that this algorithmic update would affect only 1 percent of all searches globally.

Have you heard any rumors about the next Google Panda update? Please let us know in the comment section below.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-The number of subscribers to our SEO blog climbed to a new high this month, hitting 10,311 subscribers and continuing to grow. Our blog is one of the ways we strive to keep our readers informed about the big updates in the SEO world and share as many how-to’s and resources as we can.

“Having reliable sources to keep you up to date on the latest techniques and best practices guidelines is the only way to stay on track to achieve your SEO goals,” says Ali Husayni, an SEO expert and our CEO.

To celebrate our blog’s milestone, we’re sharing nine of our favorite SEO-related websites that could help you learn the basics, stay up to date on the very latest and go in depth about the industry.

These sites are popular according to Google PageRank and Alexa global ranking as well. Google ranks pages from one to 10 based on how many other pages link to them and how well-ranked those other pages are, the higher being more popular. Alexa uses the number of average daily visitors and page views to calculate ranking, with more popular websites earning low numbers.

1. Search Engine Land: Alexa Ranking 1,231, PR 7
This is one of the sites that I use regularly to stay up to date on the latest in the search engine industry. Barry Schwartz and Danny Sullivan are two of the great authors producing content that is easy to read but in-depth and detailed enough for me to learn something in almost every article. They get the inside scoop via direct interviews with Google employees like Matt Cutts.

2. Search Engine Watch: Alexa Ranking 1,794, PR 7
This website focuses on Web search, analysis of the industry and helping site owners improve their visibility on search engines. There are many contributing authors, including the director of Search Engine Watch Jonathan Allen and Staff Writer Miranda Miller.

3. SEOmoz.org: Alexa Ranking  414, PR 6
This site is a favorite of Jessica Bates, one of our SEO copy writers.  She looks up information about the newest updates and changes that she finds out about from Google’s official blog and Google+ pages.

“I particularly like the Whiteboard Friday posts, very informative and easy to understand,” Bates says.

4. SEO Book: Alexa Ranking 1,602, PR 6
Aaron Wall founded this site and designed it to be a SEO training program. You have to join to access many of the extra tools, videos and forums, but the blog and some of the tutorials are available without an account. They are valuable resources for information about where the search engine industry is headed.

5. Top Rank Online Marketing Blog: Alexa Ranking 9,416, PR 6
This blog was started by Lee Odden nearly nine years ago and features insights, resources and commentary on topics related to digital marketing and public relations.

6. Search Engine Roundtable: Alexa Ranking 5,812,171, PR 6
This website strives to provide a one-stop location for the most interesting threads covered in the SEO marketing forums each day. The site was founded by Barry Schwartz, who is also an editor at Search Engine Land and the CEO of RustyBrick.

7. Matt Cutts Blog: Alexa Ranking 7,665, PR 6
Matt Cutts is the face of the Search Quality team at Google, and he specializes in search engine optimization issues. Although he has only posted eight times in 2012, his posts are always high quality, and you can check out the blog’s archive that dates back to 2005. His blog is one of our Editor-in-Chief Lorrie Walker’s favorite places for information.

8. Google Official Blog: Alexa Ranking 12,132, PR 8
Where better to get information than from the source. The official blog of Google covers everything from search engine updates to the latest projects Google is working on.

9. Google Webmaster Central Blog: Alexa Ranking 9,542, PR 7
This blog is more focused toward website owners and features all the official information from Google about crawling and indexing sites for the Google index. This information is usually detailed but technical, so looking up the topics from here on other top blogs can be helpful.

You can enable PageRank in your browser to see the importance of the webpage you’re viewing as determined by Google.

Of course, there are thousands of sites dedicated to SEO information not listed here, so tell us what resources help you stay up to date on SEO changes and what you like best about them.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO – A website’s trustworthiness, its credibility and its quality are critical issues today, so far as ranking in search engine results is concerned.

It takes years to build a Web empire, right? However, all you need to have it tumbled is one single Panda algorithmic update. The last few search updates by Google have given SEO a new direction, an overhaul of sorts. Today’s SEO is broader, more meaningful and more competitive. Consequently, the roles of an SEO professional have also expanded in many ways. It feels like a new beginning!

If you’re still reminiscing about the good old-fashioned ways of ranking at the top of search engines like Google, you need to wake up. It’s about time you broke out of the mold and embraced the latest developments in SEO.

Here are seven vital tips or best SEO practices that you should follow to keep your site’s SEO up and kicking in the post-Panda era of Google.

#1. Abide By Timeliness
Web content has become more time-sensitive than ever. No matter what niche you cater to, you should be able to deliver top-quality content to the target audience on a consistent basis. Search engines like Google want you to keep your customers up-to-date and well-informed all the time. Timeliness carries even more significance when it comes to doing mobile site SEO.

#2. Say ‘No’ to Shallow Content
Stop cranking out one post after another. The quality of the content that you create has a major role to play in search rankings. Focus on creating content that can go viral in a matter of minutes. Produce content that can live on the Web for a long time to come, i.e. “evergreen” content.

A couple of ideas for creating stellar content –

•    Tutorials to fix the day-to-day issues of the audience
•    Case studies
•    Industry reports
•    Curated content (I hope you know about ‘content curation’)
•    Latest industry trends or developments
•    Interviews with industry experts

If you think your site contains shallow or low quality content, you should take appropriate steps to fix it immediately. Signals to identify low quality pages include general information, duplicate content and pages without any specific purpose among others.

#3. Focus on Relevancy
The post-Panda market has enhanced the weightage of content relevance manifolds. Google’s main motto behind rolling out Panda algorithmic updates is to provide users with a top quality search experience.

This is what Google has to say on this topic –

“One of the most important steps in improving your site’s ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content.”

So, try to match your content with the ‘intent of the query’ by focusing on the most relevant keywords in your industry.

#4. Don’t Be a ‘Blind’ Affiliate
Affiliate marketing is a surefire way of earning a decent income online. But approaching this technique with your eyes blindfolded can lead to grave consequences as far as the SEO of your site is concerned. If your site’s sole aim is to send visitors to a merchant’s site without offering any real value to the user, it may be tagged as a ‘thin affiliate site’ by Google. There’s nothing bad in being an affiliate if your purpose is to produce valuable content (in the form of product reviews or comparisons).

#5. Add Variety to Content
I love to repeat this line – “Variety is the spice of life.” But it’s not just you and I who enjoy variety. Even Google’s crawler or Googlebot expects to find a variety of content on your site. When you produce content in good variety, you send a signal that you are highly focused on pleasing visitors or readers.

If you are struggling to add variety, try these –

•    Videos
•    Slides
•    Infographics
•    Image content
•    Article content
•    Press releases
•    Reviews or user-generated content
•    FAQ content etc

And make your site worthy of rank.

#6. Engage Audience via Social Platforms
The level of competition in the SEO industry is continuously increasing. Social media provides you with an opportunity to bolster your search optimization strategy and beat out competitors quickly. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, or newly rolled out platforms like Pinterest, you need to keep your target audience engaged. It influences rankings! In any case, you should know the etiquette and strictly abide by the terms and conditions of each social platform where you participate.

Yes, SEO is social (as you might have heard it).

#7. Improve Website Speed
The speed of your website is also among the key factors that affect organic search rankings. A webpage taking too much time to load (as the searcher clicks the link in search results and wants to open it) provides the user with a bad experience. The slow download speed of a site may lead to poor search rankings in Google. That’s why the speed of your site is truly worth looking at.

What else are you doing to make your Web properties survive in the post-Panda era? Please feel free to comment.

With much anticipation and with lots of work, we have finally launched our new site. Please check it out, specially the new SEO Case Studies section and give us your feedback.

In the past two days, we show a better user experience on the new site with bounce rates dropping by 5% and average time spent on pages increased by close to 1 min.

COSTA MESA, CALIFORNIA– The headline of any advertisement, blog post, article or news release is the single most important element of online content that exists.

Your headline needs to grab the attention of the reader so that they click on your link to find out more. You have roughly four to eight words to play with to make your content more attractive than everything else on the page and this is no easy task. Even experienced online writers, journalists and advertisers find the creation of headlines difficult.

A good headline will boost your chances of getting to the top of a search engine page and will make a huge difference to your conversion rate and ROI at the end of every month, too.

Unlike like Aladdin who was only given three golden wishes from the genie of the lamp, this short post is offering six magical tips for the creation of the best search engine-friendly headlines possible… for free!

1. Use Popular Keywords
Do a Google Search for keywords relating to your products, services or article subject matter before you write your headline and make sure that the popular keyword search terms are incorporated into that headline.

2. Balance the Popular Keywords with the Less Competitive Keywords
It isn’t always a good idea to use the most popular keyword in your headline because competition on that keyword is going to be high. The best keywords for headlines are sometimes those keywords that are being used by fewer competitive companies, but still being used by Internet users to find the information that they seek.

For example, with a little research you might find that Popular Restaurants New York is less competitive than Best Restaurants New York and still drives lots of traffic.

3. Summarize your Content
The Internet user must know exactly what they will find in your blog post, article, or on your landing page should they choose to click on your headline. Therefore, your headline must be a succinct summary of content that the headline links to.

If the Internet user lands on a page that has nothing to do with the headline they read, they are going to be disappointed and they will learn to avoid your site in the future.

If your article is about online marketing strategies, make sure that “online marketing strategies” is in the headline. You can leave the creativity for offline advertising and offline journalism. “Click Here for a Big Surprise” is something that might work offline, but online it is never going to draw attention because the Internet user has no idea about what they are going to find at the end of the link.

Ambiguity is certainly no friend of the Internet headline.

4. Use a Number
“100 Ideas for Father’s Day” is a much more effective headline than “Ideas for Father’s Day.” Internet users love numbers and therefore they should always feature in your headline, whether you are working on a headline for an advertisement to sell a product or a headline for a post to feature on your blog.

Percentages work well, too. If you want to promote a discount, use a number: “10% Discount” is much more effective than “Discount” alone. Saying “75% of our customers choose blueberry jam” is much more effective than “Lots of our customers choose blueberry jam.”

5. Leave Out Unnecessary Words
Connecting words such as, in, of, on, at, into, over, etc. are a waste of space in a headline. They steal the focus away from the real content of the headline and they dull down the impact of that headline on the reader.

For example, “Invest in Online Advertising to Make Your Business Grow Quicker” is the perfect example of a very weak headline. “Online Advertising Makes Business Grow” is much more powerful because the insignificant words have been skillfully removed.

6. Create Urgency
Creating urgency in your online headline is perhaps one of the best ways to get people to click on that headline and visit your website. If the Internet user knows that there is a time limit associated with the article, product or service, he or she will be more likely to click on it in the moment.

Headlines such as “The First 100 Clients Go Free,” “50% Flight Deal Ends Friday,” or “Only 25 Paintings Left” all create a sense of urgency. They clearly explain to the Internet user that there is a time or product limit and they need to act quickly if they are interested in what is being offered.

If you can put these six simple strategies in place when working on headlines for advertisements and articles in the future, you will see a marked improvement within your online marketing campaigns without fail.

David Chapman is Director of Marketing at Webrageous, a Pay Per Click Management Company in Reno, Nevada, and an expert in online marketing optimization.

As Internet search gains additional ground and companies realize the power of being found on Google, they seek professional help. However, since their knowledge of Internet marketing in general and SEO in particular may be limited, they are often faced with the challenge of how to choose the right company/consultant.

When it comes to smaller companies, most only have one shot at hiring the right SEO firm to make them successful. The investment, the waiting time and the possibility of being banned by Google are the reasons to make the right choice the first time.

Here are the questions you need to ask any SEO company before hiring them:

Success Rate:

How long have you been in the SEO world?
An SEO firm that has recently started, may not have the experience needed to get you on Google and most importantly keep you there.

How many successful SEO cases do you have?
- The more successful cases of SEO, the better the company. SEO success means only one thing: getting a client on the first page of Google for their important keywords.

What percentage of your clients do you get to #1 on Google?
- If they answer “All of them”, it is likely a lie. It’s impossible to get all of your clients to rank #1. For some clients/markets, being on the first page is enough to boost the traffic and sales, therefore, their objective is not the #1 spot. For some clients, Wikipedia ranks #1, and it is extremely difficult to rank better than Wikipedia. There are other examples.
- I’d say a really good SEO company can get at least 50 percent of its clients who target their local market at the top of Google. For international and very completive keywords, it’s enough to see they were able to get a couple of clients to the very top of Google.

How many of those successful cases can you share with us?
- If the SEO firm refrains from sharing their clients’ information with you and offers any kind of excuse (i.e. privacy of clients) drop them immediately. In the past several years we’ve been doing SEO, many of our clients are very happy to share their experience with the outside world. You can see a list here.

Search Engines:

What search engines do you get me ranked on?
- There is only one that counts: GOOGLE. Google receives over %75 of the US search market. If you rank well on Google, your business does well and if you don’t, it doesn’t matter if you rank well on Yahoo! or Bing. When was the last time you used any of these search engines?

Do you guarantee my rankings on Google?
- This is probably the most important question you need to ask. Although no one can guarantee Google results, there has to be some kind of a penalty for the SEO firm if they’re unable to get you solid results on Google (like a money-back guarantee).
- On the other hand, when you rank well on Google, you will certainly do well on Yahoo! and Bing.
- If the company says they do not guarantee placements on Google organic results, then find another firm that does.

Content:

Do you develop content for our site on a regular basis? Who writes them and how?
- Increasingly, Google is giving additional importance to content. Namely, how often a site is being updated and the quality of the content that is written. Text with grammatical or spelling errors on a site reflects a poor quality site.
- On the other hand, you need to be involved in content development because your feedback/approval is needed for anything that goes on your site.

Relevancy (Optimization):

How many times should my keywords be repeated in 100 words of one of my site’s pages?
- Most SEO newbies think the more the better. Some say 5-10 percent. But the reality of it is that Google can recognize a site’s relevance to a specific keyword even if the keyword is mentioned only once. Remember, the keywords are mentioned in a few important places of your site: URL, title tag, description tag, header tag, and finally, your site’s text.

How often do you update my site with new optimization?
- Most common people assume that optimization of a site is an ongoing task. And unfortunately, most SEO companies do not correct this misconception. Optimization of a site needs to be done only once. If the SEO consultant/company knows how Google algorithm ranks sites, he or she knows how to optimize the site to get the best placement on Google without over-optimizing it. As long as the site remains intact, there is no need for reoptimization.

Popularity (Link-Building):

Where do you buy links for our business?
- This is a trick question. Buying links is forbidden for those who want to be at the top for a very long time. If the company engages in any link-buying schemes, stay away from them.

How many back-links do you plan on getting for our site?
- The quantity is as important as the quality of the back-links. But if they refrain from answering the question directly, then they probably don’t have a method of acquiring links for your site.

What are the page ranks of sites you get links for us?
- The page rank could be from 1-9, however, this question shows the prospect that you care about the quality of the back-links they’re getting for you. At the same time, if all back-links come from PR 1-3 sites, then the SEO efforts will not have the best results.

Reports

How often do you send us ranking reports?
- Ranking reports show your site’s overall improvements or lack of improvements on Google search results. We send our clients weekly ranking reports for all of their main keywords. But even monthly ranking reports would show the results of the work and save you lots of time trying to figure out how your site is doing on Google.

How often do you send us a performance report?
- SEO, if done right, will bear fruit in three to six months. If the SEO consultant/company keeps you in the dark as to what they’re doing, then you may end up wasting your money and more importantly your time in waiting for the results that never come. High-end SEO firms always send performance reports to their clients on a monthly or quarterly basis.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO – Unnatural linking warnings via the Google Webmaster Tools are quite common now. A lot of SEOs and webmasters have been receiving such notifications through their GWT accounts. However, analyzing a site’s backlinks profile is not a cakewalk, particularly when you have tons of them. In any case, bad links (whether internal or external) can do serious harm to your website’s or blog’s search rankings. That’s why it’s vital to put things in order before you get the much-feared Google slap.

Whether externally or internally, there are some specific types of backlinks that you should avoid at all cost. Given below are eight of such links that can quickly impact the rankings of your site negatively in search engines like Google.

#1. Irrelevant Links
Whether it’s about linking out or getting linked, links have got to be relevant. After Google rolled out its Penguin update, link relevance has become an issue you can’t ignore anymore. Links that fall outside of your own niche are considered to be irrelevant by Google because they are not of any help to the user.

What benefit does a blog that caters to the SEO industry intend to bring to its target audience by linking to or getting linked by an “obscure sport bike lights site,” for example? Trying to build backlinks from sites with a high page rank that don’t fall under your niche, therefore, is an unethical SEO practice.

Whether you link to someone or somebody links to your site, link relevance must never be ignored. Period.

#2. Paid Links
Buying links to blast your way to the top of Google search engine results is a serious SEO crime. John Mueller, a popular Googler, made it quite clear that if you have been buying links for the last three years, you should go back three years and get those paid links removed. John further advised not to wait out search rank penalties, as it can take months or years to recover.

#3. Link Farm Links
Link farming is a technique that’s used to create tons of backlinks for a site over a short span of time. The fact of the matter is that the aforementioned technique has only one goal – to build backlinks.

While using the link farm technique, pros create a network of websites hosted with different Web hosting companies. The main purpose of building this entire network is to quickly build tons of backlinks. For this very reason, link farms are at the top of Google’s hit list.

#4. Dead or Broken Links
It happens that a high percentage of external links are broken or dead over a period of time. Or else, links that you published a long time back do not lead to the same content anymore. Whether links are broken internally or externally, they put a damper on the overall quality of your site. Though a couple of dead or broken links may not actually bring trouble, they can be the cause of a site’s loss of rankings when they accumulate. So don’t get your site’s SEO devalued by having too many broken links. Keep a regular watch!

For checking website URL errors, you can log into your Google Webmaster’s account and click “Crawl Errors” under the Health section in the left navigation.

#5. Repetitive Anchor Text Links
Anchor text has been manipulated for years. It’s due to this ongoing manipulation that Google began to take on this seriously. If you repeat anchor text only for the sake of appearing at the top of search engines like Google, you should expect a Google penalty anytime soon (if you aren’t hit yet). To avoid such penalties, you should always remember to add as much diversity to your anchor text as possible. Quit obsessing over the money keywords.

#6. Too Many Links from One Source
This is something that not many webmasters know. There are several cases where a site was penalized only because it had too many links pointing back to its domain from one single source.

To make your site’s backlinks profile look natural to search engines, adding variety is one of the key things you can do. It’s a good idea to get links from .net, .edu, .com, .org and country-specific domains to make your site’s backlinks profile more robust and natural.

#7. Junk Directory Links
Beware of bot-powered directory submissions! Mass submitting your site to hundreds or thousands of junk directories to loophole your way to the top of search engine results is now history. Most of the generic website directories are already dead, i.e. de-indexed by Google.

“Once you get beyond the top tier (Yahoo, Business.com, DMOZ etc), are there any directories that are worth being listed in? It depends. First, you want to navigate to the directory page you are likely to be listed on, copy that URL, and search for it in Google. Look for the cached date to see when the page was last crawled. The longer it has been, the worse it is: anything more than 45 days is trouble, anything more than 75 days is a real danger sign,” says Michael Gray of the Wolf Howl.

Getting backlinks from directories that nobody uses doesn’t improve your SEO in any way.

#8. Blog Network Links
You might have heard about the fall of Build My Rank, a popular blog network. It was pulled down by Google on March 19. Google is in a war against anyone or anything that tries to manipulate its search rankings. Therefore, it’s highly recommended not to use any similar blog or link networks for building too many links overnight. Relying on a single blog network for your site’s backlinks is an entirely bad decision.

Did you analyze the backlinks profile of your site yet? Please feel free to talk back in comments.

TAMPA, FLORIDA – Here’s something I’ve noticed in the five years that I’ve been involved in SEO copywriting: too many people (writers included, at times) don’t know what it takes to make a good press release.

Courtesy of businessonrails.co.uk

They understand the benefits of submitting press releases to posting/distribution sites to generate quality, in-bound links back to their websites. But they often invest considerable effort in writing them, only to have their releases turned down by the likes of sites such as PRWeb, PRLeap, or PressRelease365, just to name a few examples.

So if you are an SEO writer or a do-it-yourselfer interested in improving your site’s rank on Google, I offer the following tips to writing a press release that will get published by these valuable posting/distribution sites.

1. Think “Timely”
Timely, late-breaking news tends to be good press release material. I often use this as my rule of thumb: if it happened last month, it’s happening this month, or it will happen next month, it’s timely. So if your business celebrates an anniversary in July, you want to write about it in June, July or August- not in December. Other timely news that can make a good release includes: speaking engagements, conference attendance, television or radio appearances and special events.

2. Celebrate Milestones & Other Significant Occasions
Have you broken a sales record? Reached a new high in subscribers to your website’s blog or your company’s publication? Added a member to your leadership team? Been published in a prestigious trade publication? All of these are items worthy of a press release. Think about the things going on in your company that are truly worth bragging about. Chances are that’s a press release just waiting to be written.

3. Consider What is Newsworthy
This one can really trip up people. What’s newsworthy to you make not garner a second look from an outsider, so remember your audience. If you’re trying to increase Google ranking while also reaching new customers or clients with these releases, think about what might interest your constituency. Introducing a new product or service, upgrading equipment that streamlines a process for your customers, opening an additional location or debuting a newly redesigned website are examples. Other examples are making a charitable contribution to an organization, hosting a webinar, rebranding your business and offering a free service.

4. Myth-busting
Every industry has myths. What are the most common myths, misperceptions and outright falsehoods in your industry? Clear up that confusion in a press release and increase your own credibility at the same time.

5. Offer a Tip Sheet
Everyone loves advice from an insider or a subject matter expert. If you’re a vacation rentals company in the Caribbean, offer 10 tips for staying safe while traveling abroad. An orthodontist might write about the five most important questions to ask an orthodontist when considering the best professional to provide your treatment. A software provider may offer a tip sheet on the eight benefits of using their cloud-based software system.

I could go on all day about possible press release topics. If you use any of the search engine optimization firms that focus a great deal of effort on generating content for your website on a routine basis (like Master Google), having a list to jog your memory will help you ensure that you are truly helpful when your writer contacts you to pitch press release ideas. Here’s a quick reference list of topics you might also want to keep handy if you are responsible for writing, pitching or even just approving press releases for your company:

• Study or research results recently released
• Winning an award or other recognition
• Anniversary of when you began working in this industry
• Anniversary of being at your current location
• Sponsoring an event or a local athletic team
• A change in company ownership
• Developing new technology
• Participation in research, testing, pilot programs, etc.
• Endorsements from respected industry leaders or celebrities
• Staff promotions
• Going green
• Holiday-related news
• News related to awareness or health-themed months, weeks or days, such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Children’s Dental Health Month or the Great American Smokeout
• Contests and sweepstakes
• Inspirational stories related to your industry or business
• Offering an expert opinion on a popular trend in your industry
• Community service opportunities

Many press release posting websites offer excellent suggestions for press release topics. Here are some popular links you might consider checking out:

Topics for Press Releases- Find Your Inspiration
The Ultimate Collection of Press Release Topic Ideas
40 Potential Press Release Topics
12 Questions to Uncover Press Release Ideas

The important thing to remember about submitting press releases to posting/distribution sites is that many of them put your submission through an approval process prior to posting it. If it doesn’t rise to the level of a press release, it will be denied. Numerous press release posting sites are free, so you’re not out any money if the release is turned down. But many sites charge a fee. Why invest your time and money into writing and submitting something that goes nowhere?

Follow my guidelines and you’ll be better positioned to never feel the sting of rejection.