Google just released a 22-page “SEO Starter Guide”. If you’ve noticed, over the past several months Google has increased its communication with the public about what they do and don’t prefer. This guide is great for those that are either new to SEO or need a quick refresher. It’s also useful to advertisers who may be working with an existing SEO firm and they want to validate the techniques being implemented.
The glaring problem with this report is that there is no discussion of link building or off-page optimization! As we all know, link building is one the most significant factors to Google rankings and has been for the past several years. Their stance on what’s counted, what’s ignored, and/or what’s penalized in the world of link building is certainly up for interpretation. Sure, they make general blanket statements of stay away from “bad neighborhoods”, don’t do “link exchanges”, don’t buy/sell links, etc, etc. These types of stances are generic and wide open for interpretation. This could be the very reason that Google is not covering link building best practices in such a report, but time will tell; hopefully Part 2 will be released in the very near future……but don’t count on it. Even it is, expect it to be high-level and generic. Link building is the “secret sauce” behind Google’s algos and ranking systems and they’re trying to regulate the “currency” they invented. Sure, they’re slowing incorporating personalization, site stickiness and other Web 2.0 metrics into their algos, but linking is still the heavyweight.
Here’s the “Cliff’s Notes” version of this 22-page report that is almost entirely focused on on-page best practices:
- Create unique & accurate title tags
- Utilized the description tag
- Improve URL structures (here’s a flip-flop from Google)
- Make site navigation easier
- Develop quality, unique content
- Write better anchor text
- Properly use heading tags (H1s, H2s, etc)
- Optimize your images
- Effectively use robots.txt
- Be mindful of rel=”nofollow” links
- Make use of Webmaster Tools & Analytics packages
While this is a fairly basic list, it is worth the read as any official report or document from Google as it relates to “best practices” is always a strong checks & balance. Take things with a grain of salt as Google will NOT give away the secret sauce and provide a “Tell All” report. As a business owner and web marketer, you do have to make your website, its content, offerings, and off-page relationships unique and stand apart from the crowd from a competitive advantage. Guides & best practices are useful, but innovate & take your strategies to another level to have an edge!
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On November 19th, TDM will be participating in the Internet Summit Event in Chapel Hill, NC. This is the first event of its kind in the Raleigh-Durham market and a sellout crowd of more than 600 attendees is expected for this one-day event. The speaker roster is loaded with industry experts from all walks of Internet Marketing and Web 2.0 technologies. Seating is very limited, but visit the event site for registration details.
Scott Gardner, TDM’s VP Search, will be moderating a panel on Blogging & New Media. The speakers on this panel include Brad Hill (Weblogsinc), Henry Copeland (Blogads), Tim Schigel (ShareThis) and Andy Beal (MarketingPilgrim). This promises to be a panel full of great tips on how companies can effectively execute on a corporate blogging initiative, engage influential bloggers for marketing & advertising initiatives, and tap into other New Media Marketing channels.
We’ll try to put together some insightful video snippets from the event.
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A recent Jupiter Research and Buzz Logic study found that blogs were significant influencers when it comes to purchase decision making amongst consumers. In fact, the study found that blogs influence buying decisions more so than all other social media channels! A couple of key statistics advertisers need to consider from this research of more than 2,000 online consumers are:
*Blogs influence purchases: One half (50%) of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information.
*Among respondents who say they have trusted blog content for purchase decisions in the past, over half (52%) say blogs played a role in the critical moment they decided to move forward with a purchase.
*One in five general blog readers (defined as consumers who have read a blog in the past 12 months) use blog links to discover new blogs.
*For frequent readers, blog links appear to have a similar impact as a trusted recommendation from a person (a response from 39% of survey participants).
This is great news for advertisers that not only maintain and operate their own blog, but who also are tapping the power of blogger outreach for unbiased product & service reviews! There are numerous studies, which we’ll be covering, that prove the impact of peer-to-peer reviews and how people of similar demographics (age, gender, geography, interests) trust other “peer” recommendations. Popular sites like Epinions.com, ConsumerSearch.com and BizRate are destination portals with countless reviews on all types of products; they’re wonderful resources to the consumer. Blogs, on the other hand, are independent, far reaching & diversified channels that tap into a deeper connection than review aggregators: peer-to-peer trust that a blogger has with their own audience.
Are you capitalizing on New Media Marketing? If you want to learn more about a creative blog marketing campaign, please contact us today!
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