Why Should Startups Set Up Their SEO Early?

,
SEO Magnifying Glass

Source: Flickr

Startup companies have a lot to take care of just to get going. You have to deal with staffing your company, outreach, paperwork, testing, financing, and a thousand different things with little time. It is either sink or sail, and success relies on managing a multitude of problems.

It helps that most successful entrepreneurs are experts in their own field, and usually have at least a little bit of online business savvy. But, chances are they aren’t exactly well-versed in search engine optimization. While some of these startups might defer to a professional SEO resource or marketing team, it isn’t always required.

Getting even the most basic SEO considerations taken care of early on may seem superfluous, but SEO can take quite a while to grow. Starting early means you will start seeing the dividends later.

The most basic considerations of SEO simply ensure that searchers can find your business’s name and website fairly easily. Of course, a more comprehensive SEO plan extends that to ensuring you outrank your competitors and improve your larger web visibility, but that can be achieved after you’ve gotten yourself set up with just a little extra work.

Ashley Kemper from Search Engine Land put together a checklist for startups to get the most important SEO considerations taken care of early. Her list is a little more extensive than others you might find, but you’ll see much better rewards down the line by following her suggestions, and you’ll understand what you are actually doing much more.

/0 Comments

6 Ways To Use YouTube to Improve Your Local SEO

, , ,

YouTube Graphic

With the popularity and direct user engagement of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, many online marketers forget the potential for YouTube to improve your brand reputation and enforce your SEO efforts in a single move.

YouTube has a surprising amount of opportunity for optimization, especially for efforts focusing on local search. There is a relative lack of videos from small or local businesses aimed at informing the public and promoting themselves, leaving a wonderful widow for many local businesses to make an impact on their audience.

Of course, before you can optimize, you need to make sure you have a quality video that offers something of value to viewers beyond simply promoting yourself. Chris Silver Smith recently wrote about how local businesses can go about creating videos that will be worth their viewers time and make your audience interested in what you do.

There are plenty of options, but chances are you don’t want to just make an ad and throw it up online. A better approach would be a series of short videos exploring your industry, your brand, and what you offer to consumers. How-to videos can reinforce your reputation in regards to your skill, while explanations of your products and services can help viewers understand exactly what sets you apart from your competitors.

Smith also explored the ways you can optimize your videos to make sure they get seen, while also helping your local SEO efforts.

  1. Link to Your Business – At the beginning of your description, always make sure to include a link to your business website. These links are automatically “nofollowed”, so don’t expect it to help your link portfolio, but there is a chance local citation value is being conveyed to Google.
  2. Name, Address, Phone Number – Every video should include thorough contact information in multiple easy-to-find locations. Start by making it visible within the first few frames of your video. Google is able to interpret and “read” text within videos, so not only will your viewers be able to easily find you, Google will retain data contained within the video. Similarly, you may want to actually state your information out loud in the video, as spoken statements are converted into subtitle transcripts by Google’s systems.
  3. Take Advantage of the Descriptions – YouTube has one of the most generous description fields out there. While the initial paragraph users see should clearly state what the video is about, you can also include a statement about your company or a biography so that interested viewers can find it with a simple click.
  4. Tag Your Video – Along with including your business category name and your location names to the tags on videos, you should also include a handful of relevant tags for each video. Tags have a heavy impact on YouTube, so you’ll want to always make sure you include them, or your video will likely disappear into the ether.
  5. Associate the Video with Google Place Listings – Business listing in Google Places allow you to associate videos easily by putting in URLs. Make sure to use the full page URL.
  6. Associate the Video with Google+ Local Page – Adding the video to your local page allows you and any other employees to easily share the video on personal Google+ streams. The number of shares is considered indicative of popularity, so this is a good opportunity to boost your shares.
/0 Comments

Bing Explains The Four Biggest Link Building Mistakes

, ,

Stop Sign

Thanks to the big brand-named algorithm updates, Google has definitely been at the forefront of the link building discussion recently, but obviously the other search engines have their own opinions as well.

As Search Engine Land reports, Duane Forrester, Senior Product Manager for Bing, recently wrote a post on the Bing Webmaster Blog detailing the four worst link building techniques and why you shouldn’t do them.

Unsurprisingly, these link building strategies are largely in line with the methods Google has been fighting more publicly. Nonetheless, it is important to highlight the more spammy methods people are still using to try to boost their link profile.

  1. Blind Requests – Links aren’t something that should just be given out. Sending mass template emails to websites is about as spammy as you can get. The only people who will respond are those who won’t give you a quality link. Buying email lists to try to send out mass requests is an even bigger waste of funds that really won’t get you far, but could likely incur some penalties.
  2. Blog/Forum Comments – Some link builders will try to drop links almost randomly into blog comments and forum conversations, but these won’t improve your rankings a single bit. The search engines have been aware of the practice for some time now.
  3. Link Injection – This is a tactic used by spammers where sites are hacked and links are injected into content such as headers or footers. Some will even push links directly into the body content. Bing does encourage keeping your CMS software up to date and secure, but they also try to take precautions on their side against this tactic.
  4. Guest Blogging – This is one of the more controversial link building strategies because it isn’t explicitly bad. The problem is, if your focus with guest blogging is to build links, you probably shouldn’t be doing it. Forrester explains, “if you’re going to guest blog, best to do it with the intention to buildyour brand, drive traffic, and create awareness. Doing it to bolster your SEO efforts is a #FAIL these days.”
/0 Comments

What is Google Doing About Low-Value Auto-Generated Content Sites?

, ,

Have you ever searched for a term only to find a page that says “we have no articles for [your search term]” and a whole bunch of ads? Most people have come across these sites with auto-generated content, often called “Made for AdSense” or MFA sites. These pages are created for the sole reason of luring people in, and hoping they click an AdSense ad to leave the page instead of hitting the back button.

The majority of these types of websites use a script to automatically generate content that takes snippets from search results or web pages with those keywords. They don’t offer real content in any way and have absolutely no legitimate value. It makes many wonder why they’ve encountered these kinds of pages in the Google search results.

One user directly asked Matt Cutts, Google’s head of webspam, if the search engine is doing anything about the pages, such as penalties or removing these sites from the index. As you would expect, Google already has a policy in place, and Cutts encourages users to report any pages like this they come across. He states:

We are absolutely willing to take action against those sites. We have our rules in our guidelines about auto-generated pages that have very little value and I have put out in the past specific calls for sites where you search for a product – a VCR, a laptop, or whatever – and you think you’re going to get a review, and the first thing you see is ‘0 Reviews found for [blah blah blah].’

As Google sees it, even if these pages are from legitimate search engines, they don’t belong in the rankings. Users don’t really like searching for something and being sent to another page of search results. They want to be directed straight to real content.

There are very few times when search results snippets should be indexed. The only real time it might be considerable is if you have exclusive data that no one else has. But, there is no time when a supposed search results page with 0 results should ever be indexed.

To put it simply, Google is already trying to fight against these sites. They aim to find and penalize all they can, but they also want people to report them with a spam report if possible so that the lowest amount possible slip through the cracks.

/0 Comments

Facebook Hashtags Aren’t Seeing Results

, ,

When Facebook announced their introduction of hashtags in June, it seemed to be a pretty big deal, especially within the social media marketing industry. Every online marketer immediately began investigating how to make the most out of the use of hashtags, and if they are even worth the effort. A few months later, it appears the hashtags aren’t faring well.

Facebook Hashtag Graph

In late July, Simply Measured reported status updates with hashtags weren’t gaining brands any extra exposure, now Search Engine Watch reports EdgeRank Checker has similar findings.

According to EdgeRank Checker’s data, viral reach and engagement were down on posts with hashtags compared to those without hashtags. They studied over 500 pages, and then compared their data to a sample of 50 Twitter accounts from Fortune 500 brands. They found that 70 percent of brands experienced an increase in retweets when using a hashtag, indicating higher engagement.

EdgeRank Checker did have an idea why Facebook users may not be responding to the hashtags:

Our hypothesis is that not many people are clicking on hashtags. If many people were clicking hashtags, we should see an increase in Viral Reach for posts with hashtags. The data is not showing that. If anything, it’s showing a decrease in Viral Reach.

We hypothesize that hashtagged posts don’t have the expected increase in Viral Reach due to how brands are using them. After examining how hashtags are being used, hashtags are often used in promotional material. For some brands, they’ve created campaigns around particular hashtags and use them in all posts associated with the campaign. By nature, campaigns are promotional, therefore more likely to drive less engagement, less clicks, and ultimately less Reach.

/0 Comments

The Downsides of Flat Design

,

Flat Design Example

 

Flat design is undoubtedly one of the most popular design trends of the moment. You’ll find it online, on your phone, and it is even starting to make its way off the screen and onto posters and physical designs. It has already spit off into sub-categories of flat design like the so called “almost flat design” Apple is employing in their new iOS and the newly popular long shadow design.

But, the design style isn’t perfect. None are. The trendy style has numerous things it achieves very well, but there are far too many people glancing over the more problematic side of using flat design. Carrie Cousins wrote about the pros and cons of flat design, but plenty of people are willing to sell you on the upside of flat design. Today, I wanted to focus on the drawbacks.

It’s Trendy – While being trendy can be a positive – no one wants to be falling behind – you also have to be aware that flat design won’t last forever. As we’ve seen with the splintering into new iterations like long shadow design, the trends are already moving away from completely flat design, and there is no way of knowing when it will suddenly seem out of date entirely.

Usability – The simplification that lies underneath flat design can cause usability problems. Flat design can streamline a site, but it can also cause users to feel confused by the minimalistic interface. Many say they don’t know where they are supposed to click or tap, because the style does not do a good job defining what is and isn’t clickable.

Typography – Great typography looks absolutely marvelous in flat design, but boy does the style make it noticeable when typography is weak. Just look at iOS 7. The initial unveiling used an insanely thin typeface which many complained about. With layouts as simple as these, the eyes immediately go towards problem areas, and there is less to hide any flaws. If you aren’t great with fonts, you might ask for help or consider another style.

Too Simple – Not every site needs minimalism. The reason you haven’t seen flat design on many news sites is that the style isn’t good at conveying large amounts of information visually or textually. The style demands short phrases, impactful concise words, and full paragraphs just don’t tend to fit. The style of your site should entirely depend on the needs of your site. If you fill like you’re having to cut too much to fit into the trend, you should choose another design solution.

/0 Comments

Facebook Updates Their Contest and Promotion Rules for Businesses

, ,

Facebook Sticker IconFacebook appears to be undergoing large changes to their rules for businesses as they have recently created the opportunity for verified paged, embedding posts, and even giving advertisers access to a large stock photo library.

But, the change users are most likely to notice is a huge revision to the rules for how businesses run contests on their pages. As Jessica Lee from Search Engine Watch reports, businesses will now be able to run contests and promotions directly from their own timelines without the use of third-party apps, greatly streamlining the process.

As they announced last week, Facebook has reversed their original rules to allow for users to like, comment, or create posts on a page solely as a voting mechanism or entry into contest. Facebook stated in its promotions help document, “we want to make it easier for businesses of all sizes to create and administer promotions of Facebook and to align our policies to better meet the needs of marketers.”

All of this means businesses can run promotions directly from their timeline and

  • Collect entries via posts, comments, or likes on a page post.
  • Collect entries via messages from users to the page.
  • Utilize likes as a means of voting.

Facebook did say they don’t intend to put an end to contests run through apps. Instead, they see apps as a means to “create a more personalized experience, more in line with your branding strategy.”

They explained the differentiation more, saying:

Apps provide more space and flexibility for content than Page posts alone. Promotions run through apps can collect data in a secure, structured way that may be appealing to advertisers, particularly larger brands.

Creating a promotion with a Page is faster and easier. Additionally, as with all Page posts, Page posts about promotions are eligible to be displayed in the News Feeds of the people who like the Page and can be promoted to a broader audience.

Businesses always have the option of using both an app and their Page to administer a promotion.

On the other hand, Facebook also updated its page terms to restrict pages from encouraging users to tag themselves in content “they are not actually depicted in.” So it is acceptable to ask for likes or comments as part of a promotion, but you cannot post a picture and tag users or ask them to tag themselves, unless they actually appear in the image.

/0 Comments

The PPC Features Bing Ads has That AdWords Does Not

,

Bing Ads LogoAdWords has become so synonymous with PPC marketing that it wouldn’t be hard for the outside observer to believe that is the only PPC platform available. Of course, they would be wrong, as all of the major search engines also offer advertising options, but you just don’t see Bing Ads in the headlines as often.

However, any PPC marketer would be a fool to completely write-off Bing Ads without giving them proper consideration first. Experienced PPC marketers are extremely aware that AdWords basically offers zero insight into Google search partner performance, aside from aggregated metrics. Bing Ads, on the other hand, has features that offer visibility into the Bing and Yahoo search partner network, as Marta Turek recently highlighted on the Bing Ads blog.

  1. Bing Ads offers reporting for individual search partner performance within the Bing Ads UI. You can find the capability under Reports > Standard Performance > Performance > Website URL (publisher).
  2. You are also able to exclude search partners from ads groups and campaign levels. You just have to check the box next to the campaign or ad groups you want to add exclusions for, and click “Make Bulk Changes” from within the sub-navigation. Then, select “Website exclusions” from the drop down menu. You will be able to add up to 500 sites for exclusions, and it is as simple as copy and pasting from a list.
  3. The ads offer targeting for just search partners at the ad group level. Start out by clicking on an ad group and opening the settings. Ad distribution is listed under the advanced settings section.

Bing Ads has more than three unique features that Ad Words is lacking. The three above are simply those Search Engine Land pulled out of Turek’s more comprehensive examination of the platform. You may spend the majority of your time focusing on AdWords, but you should be making sure to include time to take advantage of the tools Bing Ads offers.

/0 Comments

Local Search Rank Factors for 2013: The Infographic

, ,

Keeping up with the local search ranking algorithm can often be at best confusing and at worst a complete mystery. It seems there are just as many, if not more factors involved, yet less coverage of exactly what search signals Google is using for local businesses. That can make it very difficult to know where to put your focus.

There are so many places you could put your energy too. Should you focus on the completeness of your Google Places profile? Or maybe citations and reviews are more important? Is your business hurt just because it isn’t near the center of the city? All of those are considered, and that is just skimming the surface.

While Google probably isn’t going to be delivering definitive answers about their search algorithms any time soon, David Mihm and Moz are working to find the answers with an annual survey focusing on local search ranking factors. They released their report of their findings for the year already, but Doublespark took their concise results and turned them into an infographic.

Local SEO Ranking Factors

/0 Comments