What is Evergreen Content?

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When trying to pump content out for a blog, it is easy to become focused on resharing news or tips essential to the community, especially with SEO. The problem is that SEO changes so quickly, most of these posts go out of date very quickly. This is why every blog needs a good amount of “evergreen content”.

Evergreen content is the term for any posts or articles on your blog that will always be relevant to your content. Sujan Patel from Search Engine Journal uses an example to show the distinction.

If you are running an SEO blog, an article about the latest Penguin update won’t be relevant a week or two later when the next update appears. However, a post like “What is SEO?” will always be important, especially for any new readers you gain. The definition of SEO isn’t going to change, and the overall idea of the industry stays largely consistent, though you may need to update the article every few years.

Evergreen content is always up-to-date and will always be a primary interest for your readers. For blog managers, it offers more effective content, that can be re-run later with the same impact it originally had.  For readers, it is helpful because new readers are always looking for basic information.

I like to think of it like Wikipedia information. Wikipedia articles tend to consist of factual information without touching too much on “best practices” or other time sensitive issues. When someone accesses a Wikipedia article, they want a basic explanation of what something is and why it is important. If you can convey that in an article, you have the recipe for great evergreen content.

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What Do You Need To Know For SEO In 2013

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SEO changed so much, it is hard to predict what will be best for 2013. Just this past year, Google has issued so many changes that it has become pretty much a constant. Trying to pinpoint where we will be a year from now almost feels impossible.

Paul Bruemmer from Search Engine Land, however, believes he knows how to keep up with everything for the next year with just a few tactics that can help guide you. Some are timeless, such as always keeping up with the best SEO practices, specifically starting with the Google 2012 Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. When in doubt, Google usually has an answer for any SEO practice you should be focusing on.

Social Media is, of course, also going to be a strong driving force in SEO for the next year, as there are no signs of them losing popularity. Even with the ever-changing heirarchy of sites, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube are solid constants that can be leveraged increasingly to keep in touch with consumers.

Falling behind in SEO is dangerous for your career and your clients, and any good SEO knows to keep up. Brummer’s suggestions are by no means comprehensive, but if you are wanting to make sure you’re in a good place to take on the coming year, the article is a great start.

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So What Is SEO Really?

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Most average people have know idea what SEO is, and have probably never even heard the term before. Still, the industry is essential to running a popular and credible website. It is important enough that there are an inordinant amount of people writing about it every day online. That wide amount of people writing has lead to the spread of apparent misinformation, usually by well-meaning people who were never exactly explained what SEO is and what one does.

That type of misinformation, though well intentioned, seems to have lead to a bit of an identity crisis for the market. We can see it in a couple recent articles for Smashing Magazine. The first is called “The Inconvenient Truth About SEO” and the second is its rebuttal. The first simulataneously cites the spread of misinformation as a huge issue in the field, while also attributing numerous non-SEO practices to the industry. While trying to show that a lot of the practices offered by so-called “SEO experts” are can actually be wastes of money, Paul Boag also shows that his own idea of SEO has slipped askew from what SEO does.

The rebuttal, by Bill Slawski, on the other hand is aimed at resolving these questions about what an SEO does, and more importantly, doesn’t do. Summarizing it in short would not do justice to the full explanation he offers, so I suggest just diving in and reading what he has to say.

It is hard to say that Bill Slawski’s idea of what SEO does is exactly correct either, as the people working in the field are the ones who define it, and some SEOs have been using these practices. Instead, think of it as a way to get closer to a more traditional spin on current SEO practices, and what SEO really means.

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Why Do Some SEOs Still Gather Data Manually?

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SEO relies on data. That’s a pretty simple fact. Still, for some reason, some SEOs still do all their research by hand and manually track their performance, usually by making Excel charts that seem to stretch for days. I honestly don’t completely understand how they put the time into even trying to do this, at this point in SEO. So for this article I won’t be answering the question posed in the title, but instead showing why manual data gathering doesn’t make sense anymore.

To do well in SEO, you require fresh and accurate data to base your decisions upon. If you spend all your time and effort doing data gathering by hand, how do you have the time to make solid judgments and strategies for your customers?

SEO, of course, did start out with that exact manual strategy, but the reason it isn’t anymore is because this very problem I’m talking about. There is simply too much data, and data gathering can be easily automated, so doing it by hand is a waste of time and resources.

But, for those few SEOs out there still doing things the old fasioned way, there are pleny of ways to get all of your data gathering automated quickly. Myles Anderson from Search Engine Land gathered a quite a few tools you could use to get started, as well as answering just about any question about local SEO tools anyone has had ever.

It is a comprehensive guide, so if you just need the tools, head straight for that section, but if you need more convincing or don’t understand how the tools work or their benefits, Anderson makes a strong case with his explanations.

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Yes, The Disavow Links Tool Works

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After Google launched the disavow link tool in mid-October, there were a fair amount of doubters and those that claimed it doesn’t work. Dixon Jones from Majestic SEO, a well known and respected member of the SEO community posted in a Google+ thread that he used it for a site and it worked to remove a manual link penalty.

SEO Roundtable has the exact posts he made explaining the process and what happened. For Jones, the manual penalty was removed fairly efficiently, but those wanting to use it for a Penguin link penalty may need to wait for a new refresh.

The best option is of course to try to avoid link penalties or bad links, but the world isn’t perfect. If you’ve dealt with the root issue which caused the penalty, the disavow links tool may just be the solution you need.

 

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The Myths and Misunderstandings of Mobile SEO

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It is shocking to me how many people write off mobile SEO as being unimportant or overhyped. Just taking a quick look at the rising rates of people searching with mobile devices makes it pretty clear how much of the market is dominated by mobile devices.

Sure, there are still more people using desktops on the internet, but every year we see a greater percentage of that traffic coming from smartphones and tablets. The trend isn’t going away. More people have tablets and phones every day as more affordable options become available.

So, why then is mobile SEO on quite a few lists of things people hope we stop talking about next year? It is because many people in the SEO industry don’t really understand what mobile SEO is, or how it works.

Bryson Meunier also had a problem with how many people seem to be writing off mobile SEO right now, and he compiled a list of the misconceptions and myths as well as explaining how they’re wrong.

 

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The Future of SEO [Infographic]

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As the year draws to a close, everyone of course looks to what the past year indicates for the one coming up. I’ve already covered one article of year end analysis, and now Search Engine Watch and Mavenlink have made an infographic covering what SEO professionals are saying about the state of SEO in 2012.

What is notable about both of these year-end opinions is that they are both extremely optimistic about the future of SEO. As the internet becomes somehow even more pervasive in our every day life, more and more opportunities for SEO to grow become apparent, and there is no sign of it slowing down.

Budgets are growing, companies are paying more attention, and SEO teams are getting bigger. SEO is finally even beginning to be seen as an entity seperate from regular marketing. Before long, SEO might be really known outside of the marketing community.

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How To Improve Your SEO Audits and Link Evaluation

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If you are doing a ton of SEO audits, or just doing audits on sites with lots of big data, you probably have been itching to find any way to make your process more efficient without impacting the quality of your work.

Alan Bleiweiss, writer for Search Engine Journal, had that problem. With Google fighting unnatural links, we all have felt a heightened need to be examining inbound link profiles. These two things combined have caused Bleiweiss to bring together a set of techniques he uses to speed up his audits.

No one wants to spend their entire life doing audits, but theres no need to lower your bar for quality just to save some speed.

 

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How Does Google Handle Linkspam Abroad?

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Have you ever wondered how Google handles web spam in other languages or other countries? According to Matt Cutts, head of Google’s webspam team,  they have people placed on the ground across the globe to handle markets for their native countries.

Cutts, was responding to a question asked online, when he said, “If an algorithm misses something, they are there to find the spam. They know the lay of the land, they know who the big players are, and they’re really quite expert. So if there’s some really unique kind of link spam going on in Poland, for example, there’s a person there.”

The video is below. The question was poorly phrased (Europe is smaller than the US? Really?), but it helps illustrate just how international of a company Google is trying to be. I’ve heard European countries use Google less than the US, but clearly Google is still trying to offer the same experience across the globe.

 

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Content Marketing is Becoming Important Offline Too

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Content creation has long been at the top of SEO, but it is leaking from the internet into the real world. One of the front runners of this change in real-life marketing is Red Bull, who has begun publishing their own magazine, The Red Bulletin, which paints a picture of a world where there are no limits.

This isn’t an isolated case. According to a recent survey, 90% of marketers believe that content marketing will only become more essential in the next year. Ronn Torossian has predictions and other instances of how companies are using content creation to reach out to their customers directly, all at Search Engine Journal.

 

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