Articles Tagged with Ranking Factors

Brighton SEO

My Top 10 Takeaways from #BrightonSEO April 2012

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Brighton SEO
The only pic I took – terrible quality, I know!

Having been in SEO for over 3 years now, attending a conference was long overdue. Thankfully, we won some tickets to Brighton SEO and so I headed there with Liberty colleagues Andrew (@Andrew_Isidoro / @SEOFoSho) and Ceri.

While Andrew tweeted like a madman (this tweet sums it up well!), I made a ton of notes, equalling 1,000 words – good fun on an iPad, let me tell you…!

Anyway, here are my top 10 takeaways from the event:

1. Bing: Social is a “strong signal” for content
Talk: Panel – Ask the Engines with Pierre Far, Dave Coplin, Martin McDonald, Rishi Lakhani & Tony Goldstone

Straight from the horse’s mouth – Bing’s Director of Search Dave Coplin explained that social is used as a ranking signal in Bing. He even specified that they definitely take Facebook and Twitter into account, and those whose efforts are “bloody good” will be rewarded with better rankings.

2. ISO DateTime gives search engines context to dates
Talk: Microformats & SEO – Glenn Jones, @glennjones

I’m still fairly new to the head-scratching-inducing world of schema.org and rich snippets, but I thought it was cool that “ISO DateTime” can give context to dates that search engines will understand. With so many ways to write a date (17th Apr 2012, 17/04/12, 2012-04-17, and so on), it can be used to clarify a date in one standard format. It can even be used when a date isn’t actually written, but a date is still suggested (e.g. “next Tuesday”).

Glenn’s slides can be found here. See slide 17 for more info.

3. What info to include when reporting on online PR
Talk: How you can get BIG links from BIG media sites – Lexi Mills, @leximills

Lexi’s talk was by far my favourite at the event. In terms of reporting on online PR efforts, one should consider including:

  • Domain Authority of the site (not PageRank of the page: the article/content will be brand new on the site – as a brand new page – and therefore PageRank will be low (n/a) for that page to begin with, so for that reason, DA is a more sensible metric to use),
  • Whether the link is dofollow or nofollow,
  • Whether the link is an image or text,
  • The anchor text of the link.

I think the same easily applies to guest blogging as well.

4. Follow #prwin, #prfail and #journorequest for potential online PR opportunities
Talk: How you can get BIG links from BIG media sites – Lexi Mills, @leximills

Another gem from Lexi. Keep an eye on the above hashtags for an opportunity to strike.

My tip: Want to filter it by industry? Add a keyword after each one, e.g. #journorequest fashion. You could have one (or a few) per client/site.

5. Tell clients their month-average ranking as well as/instead of their current ranking
Talk: Maximizing your SEO Agencies – James Owen, @jamesoSEO

It’s happened to all of us… When we give our client their end-of-month report, they’ve performed consistently well all month, and then Sod’s Law strikes and on the 29th or 30th they’ll drop a few places. We give them their current rank and they wonder it’s been like that the whole time…

In those situations, it might also be worth including their average ranking over the month, so that you can say “yes, it is nth right now, but look at where it was before…!” Especially handy if it’s a temporary dip.

6. Say “Did I explain that clearly?” instead of “Did that make sense?” or “Did you get that?”
Talk: Sell the Sizzle, Not The Search: Tactics for Appeasing Marketing Directors – Chelsea Blacker, @ChelseaBlacker

This is very timely for me. I’ve been meaning to write a post about sales/networking tips for non-sales people, and although Chelsea’s talk was applied to Marketing Directors and others within an organisation, I think it applies to any/all environments involving laymen.

After exploding someone’s head with overly-technical information, I’ll often say something like “do you know what I mean?”, which might leave the listener feeling a little silly (albeit unintentionally). However “did I explain that clearly?” is a softer approach and – chances are – I probably didn’t explain it clearly, so more accurate, too.

For me personally, this has been one of the most valuable takeaways of the event. Thank you Chelsea!

7. Use competitor downtime to your advantage…
Talk: Enterprise SEO Titties (was that a typo or the actual title of the event in the end?!) – Tony King, @ToastedTeacake

All’s fair in love, war and search…

We all know that competitors bid on each others’ brand terms using PPC (especially big brands), in an attempt to cheekily pinch each other’s traffic before it reaches the site. But Tony made a very good point – if you notice that one of your main competitors is experiencing website downtime, increase your bids on those terms. That’s the time to strike, offering yourself as a (functioning) alternative to frustrated customers who could use you instead of waiting for their usual port-of-call website to get themselves sorted and fixed…

It’s cheeky as hell (although brilliant, mind you), but hey – they’d probably do it to you, too!

8. Shape your response to emotional highs (and use SEO and PPC accordingly)
Talk: SEO & PPC Working Together in Harmony – Tim, @JellyfishAgency

Use SEO and PPC together, but for different reasons. As PPC can be turned on and off very quickly and ads can be shown at certain times of the day, it can be used to drive people to a website at a time when they might be feeling an “emotional high,” as Tim put it. Don’t just rely on SEO, when PPC could be used to draw in additional traffic that may be more inclined to read/react/buy compared to usual.

EDIT: Sorry, it was Tim who was speaking, not Craig! Cheers to @JellyfishAgency for clarifying!

9. Author Rank could be swayed by industry
Talk: I Believe Authors are the Future – James Carson, @mrjamescarson

James’ talk was interesting – it’s early days for the likes of Author Rank, rel=author, etc., but it’s clear that Google is becoming more and more fixated in this area as time goes on.

James has a theory that in the future, Author Rank could differ by industry. Rather than a well-respected, high-ranking author always ranking well no matter what they publish, Author Rank could be determined by the consistency of what they publish by industry, based on their previous successes. For example, if a famous fashion blogger suddenly blogged about football, it may not necessarily rank well – even if their fashion posts usually do – because it is inconsistent of what they’re known and respected for.

10. Mascots can cause a reaction (but be a distraction)
Talk: I appear to have started a sweetshop (and advertising company) – Dom Hodgson, @Thehodge

Dom easily wins the award for the most entertaining talk of the day (as I’m sure fellow attendeanales reading this will agree…)

Dom originally used a mascot – a “f***ing squirrel,” as he so eloquently put it! – on the first design of his sweet shop website. Although they had a lot of social media mentions revolving around said mascot to begin with (“did that squirrel just f***ing wink at me?!”), showing initial promising signs that his(?) inclusion was a good move, they decided to “kill” the squirrel and eventually removed it from the site. Why? Because an eye-tracking test showed that visitors were distracted by the squirrel, and in some cases it might’ve been such a distraction that it was putting some customers off from buying anything.

I found this fascinating. It just goes to show that even if people say something positive via social, it may not actually be a positive for the website or company.

11./Bonus: Advanced Search String Queries for SEO
Talk: Word from a Sponsor – Analytics SEO, @analyticsseo

Ok, so I lied – I’ve included an 11th takeaway, as while writing this post, I remembered another good takeaway from one of the sponsors – Analytics SEO – who used their ‘sponsor message’ section to share their list of advanced search string queries for SEO.

So that’s it! That’s some of the words from the 1,000-word tome that’s left me with aching fingertips and a low iPad battery…

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank a few people:

  • Analytics SEO, who ran the ticket competition and therefore the whole reason I managed to go,
  • Kelvin (@kelvinnewman), the event’s organiser, for his help and patience with the infamous ‘ticket confusion’ on Thursday,
  • The Brighton SEO blog (I’m assuming Kelvin again?), as I used their list of last-minute Brighton hotels when booking accommodation – a great idea for appropriate, helpful content,
  • Emily (@ems_ob), for the catch-up,
  • The man who bought me a shot of sambuca because I apologised for accidentally queue-jumping him at the bar at the afterparty. Alcohol + poor memory (generally) = I’ve forgotten your name, but if you tweet me and remind me then I’ll edit this post and link to you as promised. (And before anyone tries pulling a fast one, I’ll know the name when I see it!),
  • The magician (@mcrmagic), for blowing my mind to smithereens.

Oh and for anyone reading this who enjoyed the karaoke at the afterparty, I’m the guy who sang the Foo Fighters song. I apologise for the high bits!

EDIT (03/05/12): I thought I’d share this awesome infographic as well…

Brighton SEO Infographic April 2012

Infographic Design by ShellShock uk

Keep it Relevant: Content Strategy and SEO in Traditionally Boring Industries

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Random Words image

I recently got into a discussion on Twitter with a former colleague of mine, after I rather (stupidly) publicly questioned my former employers’ choice of off-site content strategy. There’s more to the story and some stuff I’d like to say, but so as not to detract from the main purpose of this post, I’ll write about it at the end.

A prominent part of online marketing is content strategy. Utilised both on- and off-site, it can help with SEO, in attracting links to a website and also by targeting “long-tail” traffic (i.e. long search terms, such as questions, e.g. “what is no claims bonus”).

You might have seen it too – a lot of websites are now introducing content sections to their sites, or at the very least have gotten a blog, in order to write about their industry. But that’s just it – creating a blog is one thing, but thinking about what to write about can be something else entirely, especially if your industry is… well… boring.

In particular, I’ve seen a number of sites recently that have written content that simply isn’t relevant to their industry. The two who spring to mind are both insurance sites, one of which recently published a blog post on social media predictions for 2012. An insurance website writing about social media. Hmm…

So what’s the problem? Well here are 3 to think about:

1) It just isn’t right – it detracts from who you are and what you do

Ignoring SEO for a moment and looking at it from a purely aesthetic point of view, it just seems odd that Industry A would write about Industry X. We’re not talking slightly off-topic, but completely off-topic.

I’m not saying that the guys don’t know enough about social media in order to write about it effectively (they do engage in it, after all) – that’s not what I have a problem with. I mean heck, it could be the best social media advice ever. But even so, it seems unusual to read a blog post about social media and to see something like “this was brought to you by an insurance company” at the end. At worst, it seems misleading and somewhat seedy – you’re potentially confusing your customers about what you do, and it reeks of ulterior motive.

I’m not just picking on insurance for the sake of picking on insurance – I think it’d be true of any industry. If a doctor were to write about mortgages, and a mortgage advisor were to write about medical procedures, I think that’d be weird too, for all the same reasons.

2) It’s not going to be a relevant link

…From an SEO point of view however, it’s an issue of relevance from a more technical standpoint. If it’s an off-site article or guest blog post (such as this insurance/social media example), then the link is simply not going to be relevant.  It may be a good link in other ways (e.g. PageRank, the traffic it receives, etc.) but the content just isn’t going to match.

Looking purely at the link, with all other factors aside, having a link with “car insurance” anchor text coming from a page that’s all about social media isn’t going to be as good as a link with “car insurance” anchor text that’s all about insurance, motoring or both.

3) It’s not going to generate relevant links

Thinking beyond the post itself, think about the links it will receive, rather than the link(s) it will give (especially if it’s off-site). A social media story is likely to encourage links from other social media sites, making it more relevant about social media, but not any more relevant about insurance. It may receive more links than a piece about insurance would – given the popularity of the topic and the types of linkers in comparison – but they’re still going to be irrelevant all the same.

It’s easy to point a finger and say “don’t do that,” so what should businesses consider doing instead?

If relevant is too hard, then think one step away

In particularly niche, specific and/or dull industries (no offence), thinking of content can be difficult. For example, there’s only so much you can write about when it comes to insurance until you end up repeating yourself and covering the same ground.

So if being 100% specific is too difficult, take one step away. What’s related to:

  • Insurance? Money, budgeting, protection.
  • Car insurance? Motoring, learning to drive, car maintenance, places to drive to, racing.
  • Travel insurance? Travel, holidaying, adventure, exploration.
  • Credit cards? Money, credit, borrowing, debt.

Keep resources focussed and don’t spread yourself too thin

Now admittedly, I know that the site in question do most – if not all – of the above, but the point is that they shouldn’t stray too far away. There must be 1,000s of different topics to write about, if something as specific as insurance only provides dozens.

Writing off-topic content is only going to waste resources that could be spent writing relevant or semi-relevant content, which in turn will encourage relevant and semi-relevant traffic and links. Also, it not only means that you’re spreading yourself too thin, tackling areas that are not your area of expertise, but – as mentioned above – it also detracts from what you really are and what you actually do. Want to be an authority in insurance? Write about insurance and things closely related to it. You’re not going to be seen as an authority on a particular subject if you talk about other things, particularly if you do not even provide them as a product or service.

Ok, so off-topic can work…

Of course, it would be naïve to think that relevance is a necessity, in terms of SEO. It is only a recommendation (albeit a strong one), as it is only one of a number of ranking factors that Google considers (here’s a list of search ranking factors from SEOmoz, based on thoughts from people in the industry). For example, I’m sure a link from the homepage of Facebook would do wonders for a website’s SEO, from a PageRank point of view, but there’s more to life than PageRank…

I can’t think of any examples of off-topic content working well off the top of my head, but if anyone knows of any then please do share them in the comments.

The inspiration for this post

“Think before you tweet, Steve. Think before you tweet.”

The idea for this post came about after something that happened on Wednesday (although that said, it’s something that’s gone on for a while…)

Over the past year, I’ve questioned the content/SEO practices of my former employer, usually over Twitter, which has resulted in a former colleague (who still works there) asking me to “stop slating” them, as it’s “very unprofessional.” The reply has a “ha ha… no but seriously” tone to it, but even so, it’s made me realise that I shouldn’t do it. I have a tendency to tweet before I think, and to be more opinionated than I perhaps should be (publicly, at least). It’s no excuse, but at least I’ve realised it now – better late than never. It’s one of a number of New Year’s resolutions making the list…!

I also realised that simply saying something like “I disagree with that” or “you’re doing it wrong” helps no one, so at least this post acts as constructive criticism, giving reasons as to why I disagree along with what they could or should be doing instead. Hell, it’s only my opinion – and a personal one at that – but it’s better than nothing.

I didn’t want to link to any of the instances and examples (which feels a bit alien to a link builder like me!) but I’m sure the more investigative reader will be able to ascertain where I’ve worked previously (it’s on my LinkedIn profile, which is linked from my About page), and the correspondence between me and my former colleague can be found on Twitter if someone really did want to be nosy.

But oh well, it could’ve been worse… I could’ve written a song about it instead, like I did for a different previous employer. I thought a blog post would be better this time around!

[Random Words image credit: Chris Halderman]

Is Link Building a Job “a Monkey Could Do?”

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Monkey on a Mac imageWhen I found out that an acquaintance of mine – who I looked up to and respected – had badmouthed and insulted my main area of expertise, I was pretty hurt. I had been informed that when he was asked by someone if he thought there was any value in link building as an SEO practice, he said that he didn’t think there was and that it’s a job “a monkey could do.” Charming!

Although his line of work isn’t primarily SEO, it is closely related, so I was quite shocked – but also somewhat relieved – to find out that his thoughts were based on the ignorant belief that there’s only one thing link builders do, and that’s simply to “submit links to general directories.” Although directories can still be included as part of an all-round link building strategy, gone are the days when SEOs could rely on link directories alone.

Of course, with Google’s on-going changes to its search engine’s algorithm, for an SEO to concentrate on just directories, they’d have to be absolutely bananas! (Sorry, couldn’t resist – there had to be a monkey-related pun in this post somewhere!) Some SEOs argue that link building (a major element of off-site SEO) is a stronger SEO signal than on-site SEO (although many will also argue that both should be considered for the best possible chance of success, as one element being weak can let the side down overall). So it’s crucial that an SEO strategy involves a well-rounded and varied link building strategy, particularly in competitive industries.

Then there’s the subject of how many factors come into Google’s search engine rankings, and how often the search engine algorithm is updated. The answer? They “use more than 200 signals… and [they] update these algorithms on a weekly basis” (source). 200… Two years ago, when it was first mentioned by Matt Cutts, folks over at WebmasterWorld made an attempt to list them, and the provisional list had at least a dozen variables affecting the finer details of an individual in-bound link, including the anchor text used, its position on the page, its relevancy to the content as well as a whole bunch of other factors. It’s complicated stuff. And that was two years ago! There’s probably more now, or if now then at least they’ll have changed, with some variables gaining more importance over time; others less.

Then there’s the type of links an SEO can go out and obtain. Sure, there are your bog-standard general directories, but there’s also article marketing, reciprocal linking, paid links (boo!), blog comments, blog rolls, guest blogging, forums signatures, linkbait ideas including infographics, online tools, badges, etc. etc. – some of which have become less important compared to others as time has passed, and I’m sure there’s a lot, lot more than what I’ve just covered. It’s enough to make someone go ape… (Last pun, I promise.)

But don’t just take my word for it. When I first heard about the monkey comment, I decided to get the feedback and opinions of a few fellow SEOs via Twitter.

Profile pictures of the three tweetersThree got back to me, with the following:

Brighton-based SEO Yousaf (@ysekand) said: “Anyone can build links but it takes creativity & outside the box thinking to build quality/juicy links, that is the difference.” (Just realised that I misspelt your name in my original tweet to you – I apologise sir!)

Recent Liberty starter Andrew (@Andrew_Isidoro) has a similar opinion: “Most people could link build with training, but the best guys are web-savvy, intelligent & work with a high level of creativity.”

Tweet #3 by Mike (@Koozai_Mike) – on the other hand – seemed to be more concerned with the monkeys’ supposed confusion over their occupation: “I thought monkeys were busy writing the works of Shakespeare? If they can’t finish that yet, then they’ve got no hope.” An unusual comment, but good on him for countering the comment with a bit of humour, rather than writing an epic, probably-OTT blog post about it (we all have our ways of dealing with things, I suppose…)

However, the link building fun doesn’t stop there. It’s occurred to me typing this now that Yousaf, Andrew and Mike could possibly share this post via their Twitter profiles and possibly link to it from their own sites because they’re mentioned in it. In fact, there’s a chance that others in the SEO industry will be interested due to the industry’s strong sense of community (you only have to take a look at the likes of SEOmoz’s thriving SEO community and the WebmasterWorld Forums to see how strong the communities can be as well as the simple fact that most SEOs like to help each other out). Plus we like to defend hurtful, attacking comments made towards SEOs (remember the guy who called us “SEO bastards,” and the SEOs who wrote blog posts in response?)

I wrote this post because I wanted to defend what we do from a silly, harmful comment. But if this blog post – and my website domain as a whole – garners links in the process then I’d consider it an added bonus. This post is potentially a link-earning bit of content – a link building consideration in itself.

But hey… We’re only monkeys, right?

[“Monkey on a Mac” image credit: thegarethwiscombe – cheers also to Yousaf, Andrew and Mike for their contributions as well (their images courtesy of their respective Twitter profiles)]