Tag Archive for: Search Engine Journal

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 The problem is that SEO changes so quickly, most of these posts go out of date very quickly.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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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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Using AdWords to Capitalize on the Holiday Season

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If you’re like me, you do as much of your holiday shopping online as possible. Juding by statistics, there are plenty of people out there like me. Google searches for retail products jump up as much as 500-percent during December.

Conversely, the service industry sees a major dip in activity through the holidays. Obviously, December is a different landscape than the other 11-months and what was previously working for your business may need to be tweaked for the holidays.

Jeremy Decker, of Search Engine Journal, has some suggestions to make the most of this changing terrain. By pulling the right strings, you can have a very, merry holiday season.

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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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How Do You Decide Which Potential Clients To Accept

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Anyone starting an SEO from the ground up knows how difficult it can be to choose your clients. Many will just accept anyone that is willing to pay them for work. Many can’t afford not to.

But once you have established yourself, you can begin to be a little more choosey with your clients. You are not forced to work for clients that do not appreciate your work, or try to get a ton out of you without compensating you equally.

Nick Stamoulis has gone through these stages, and collected a set of reasons why you may decide to decline a client. The reasons are varied, but the main point is while you want to work with anyone that comes to you for business, sometimes it is better to let one prospect pass so that you can catch a better one a little later.

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Don’t Be Afraid of the EMD Update

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Another week, another Google update. This time around it is an EMD, or “Exact Match Domain” update.

So how does it effect you? What did the update do? What does it all mean?

Mainly, this update means bad news for spam. Many in the SEO community were frightened the EMD update would go through and destroy every exact match search result on the web, but that is far from the truth.

This update doesn’t ruin exact matches, but looks for signs of spammy abuse of the system. Alex Becker over at Search Engine Journal has a full explanation of the update and how it effects all of those spammers out there, but the important message is clear. No, the EMD update should not hurt you, if you are following all of the suggested guidelines.

 

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5 Tips to Stretch Your Modest AdWords Budget

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Chances are that your company doesn’t have piles of money to throw at advertising in order to get results. Most likely, you’re wondering how to get a big ROI from a modest to meager ad budget. Jeremy Decker has five tips for you, which you can read more about at Search Engine Journal.

1. Utilize lower ad positions

When you search for a specific topic or product, do you always click the first result that appears? I’m assuming you answered ‘no’ because I don’t know anyone who does.

With that in mind, you can take advantage of ad placements below the top three on Google and still see results, often at a lower cost-per-click.

2. Specific targets

Using general, one-word keyword will allow your ads to pop up more often. However, your audience in that scenario will rarely be searching for exactly what you offer.

Instead, use keywords that pinpoint what your business is. These ideally would be phrases of three or more words, which will probably include your location. Fewer users will enter those search terms, but the ones who do will be hoping to find a business just like yours.

3. High-converting keywords need their own campaign

Be sure to check out how each of your keywords are performing. When some separate themselves as ‘high-converting’, consider creating a campaign that includes only those keywords. This way, the most effective keywords will have a budget to themselves. Otherwise, less effective keywords could show up more and you’ll reach your cap without the heavy hitter getting a chance.

4. Display network doesn’t get conversions

Using the display network option in addition to, or instead of, search results will potentially spread awareness about your company to a gigantic audience, it usually doesn’t yield conversions at a high rate. If your ad budget is limited, it’s best to put all of your investment into search traffic rather than limiting yourself in order to invest partially in such a risky venture.

5. Location, location, location

It’s not just a key for real estate. AdWords allows you to track what cities your traffic and conversions are coming from. With this information, you can get the most of your budget by omitting your ads in locations where conversions are low. You can also create new campaigns specifically for your top performing areas.

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How to Format Your Blog For Success

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While your content quality is always important, it is always important to remember aesthetics when building up a blog. Adam Thompson from Search Engine Journal has a good rule for considering how your blog appears. “What’s on the inside only matters if the outside is attractive enough to keep viewers reading”.

This applies even when writing a blog post. Most internet users scan content instead of really delving in and reading. You need a quality title to intrigue readers, and good formatting to draw the readers to areas with the most important information. If you can do this well enough, your formatting may help grab your visitors and make them actually read.

We have a list of seven tips for formatting your blog, but beforehand, there are four requirements you need to meet.

  1. Have a high-quality theme – Make sure it is related to your brand, and if you choose a premium theme, you can have a designer customize it to match your brand.
  2. Use Great Titles – If your titles aren’t quality, visitors won’t bother to even skim the body text.
  3. Ensure you’re using social sharing buttons and widgets – Keep them relevant and easily accessible, but also remember not to clog the page.
  4. Follow SEO practices – Always make sure you meet the basic SEO best-practices such as static URLs, optimized page titles, meta descriptions, and image alt tags.
Now that we’ve covered those basic requirements, here are seven tips for successfully formatting your blog posts.
  1. Subheadlines – Breaking up your blog post with subheadlines help readers scan your post, and your subheadlines should give the reader a good idea what the post is about.
  2. Real Photos – Stock photos can always help add some good color and pizzaz, but if it isn’t adding anything unique to your post, then it shouldn’t be there. Your photos should be communicating something specific.
  3. Photo Captions – Captions help transform your pictures from basic aethetic touches to communcation of real ideas. Using captions well allows photos to be used to communicate specific information to the reader quickly.
  4. Custom Graphics – Sometimes charts or graphs may be the best way to quickly communicate information visually. While they require some extra time and money, custom graphics help clearly visualize data and spruce up your post.
  5. Pull Quotes – Pull quotes are an easy way to entice viewers to get intrigued in your post. If you use them right, your viewers will be intrigued by the quote and want more information or context.
  6. Use Color – Black text on a white background is old and boring. Add some color to liven up your page and engage viewers. It can be as simple as changing the colors of your Hx tags, or brightening up pull quotes. Don’t overdo it, and make your site neon, but use color to highlight information and attract readers.
  7. Bullet Point Lists – If your information is easily communicated in a list, always use bullet points or a numbered list. It makes it much easier for readers to scan for the interesting points, and still gain quite a bit of information.
If you can employ these tips in your blog, you will make viewers want to read, rather than trying to push them to the content. Coerce them to actually read by making it pleasant and engaging for them.

 

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Get More Retweets

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Would you like the increase in your audience and the thrill that only comes from a retweet? Of course you do. Ann Smarty, of Search Engine Journal, has seven ways for you to get retweeted more.

1. Read Expert Opinions

Reading this article is a good start. Now, go find more opinions on getting retweeted and become an expert yourself.

2. Find Peak Hours

Use available analytic tools to find when your desired demographic uses Twitter. Then, tweet so you’re near the top of your audiences timeline.

3. Use Viral Content Buzz

It’s a free social media platform you should look into. There’s an option to get you more retweets while you retweet other users. Maybe it’s a bit of a cheat, but it gets the job done.

4. Twitter Chats

When you participate in Twitter chats, you gain the ears and eyes of a large audience. Suddenly, you’re a familiar name to many more users.

5. Get the Scoops

Follow news outlets or other streams that break news first. Then, spread the word about breaking stories or tweet about stories you just find interesting. Links get more retweets and links to news no one else has heard makes you a desired follow.

6. Name Drop

Pay attention to those that follow you that boast their own impressive number of followers. Mention them by name in some of your tweets. Hopefully, they’ll retweet you occassionally. If not, at least you may capture part of their audience by showing up in their feed.

7. Repeat Yourself

If you have success with a particular tweet, don’t just forget about it. Use it again, as long as it is still relevant, down the road. It will be new to a big chunk of users.

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