Pimp My Keywords

Deep Thoughts By Google's Matt Cutts (at Pubcon)

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam team, recently spoke at Pubcon in Las Vegas.

When Cutts speaks, people truly listen.

In fact, they're usually sitting on the edge of their seats writing down every word and trying to capture an insider's track on how they can earn higher rankings in Google.

Here are some points made by Cutts at Pubcon:

• SEO is not dead (Note: If you think SEO is dead, then move on. Your competition will crush you and then you'll have something else to whine about).
• The long-term trend is mobile search, local search and social search.
• The Google search algorithm is going to change soon with more emphasis on content above  the web page fold.
• Google is going to allow website owners to ping site updates, so one can "claim" new and original content before scraper sites steal it.
• Use Webmaster Tools.
• Sign up for e-mail alerts.

Google's Amit Singhal, who some say is the Google algorithm king, also added:

• Press releases are not helpful for link building any more. Links from press releases can be good but only when media uses the release and creates their own story.
• More emphasis will be coming soon on personal search in Google.

Stay tuned!

Are You Monitoring Social Media?: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 174

It doesn't matter how much (or little) your business participates in social media, you can always count on someone doing the talking for you.

Unfortunately, when soured customers, disgruntled employees, fierce competition, etc., are given the opportunity to voice their opinions to the world (via social media), things can start looking bad for your business rather quickly.

Fear not, here are some basic steps you can use to protect yourself from the bad guys:

• Monitor social media for any comments and reviews about your business. You can search Twitter, Google and other websites for particular mentions on your business, brand, product lines, etc.
• Consider subscribing to a social media monitoring service.
• Register your website/business with all online listing, mapping and review websites such as Google Places, Yelp, CitySearch, etc.
• Make sure your online listings are 100% complete and accurate. Monitor them for bad reviews.
• Have a plan in place if someone leaves a bad review. Sometimes, a negative review can be removed, if it violates the website's terms of service.
• Respond according to a negative review and try to fix the problem through the review site. This shows the public you are willing to solve the "problem."

If negative company news is announced or several bad reviews pop up, you may need to engage an online reputation management services firm to counteract bad news.

Why Your Competition Is Kicking Your Butt: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 173

Why is your competition stomping you in Google search engine rankings?

There could be several factors, including:

• Your competition is optimizing their website internally or using an SEO firm.
• Your competition is always looking for opportunities for SEO improvements. 
• Your competition has better Page Titles and other important tags.
• Your competition is incorporating keywords on relevant pages.
• Your competition is earning inbound links to their website.
• Your competition is blogging.
• Your competition is participating - at least on some level - in social media efforts.
• Your competition is utilizing online advertising with Google Adwords, Facebook advertising, etc. to generate additional traffic and conversion opportunities.

And you're doing nothing but complaining.

Sorry, but Google doesn't care that your site looks better or that you think you're the best florist, restaurant, lawyer, dentist in town.

Link Building Strategies - Part I

Listen and learn as we share some of our link building strategies we use here at Purple Trout, LLC in earning one-way links to our clients' websites.

 

Measuring SEO KPI: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 172

How are you measuring your search engine optimization (SEO) success? By your keyword ranking in Google and other search engines?

Consider these Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as true ways to measure your success in SEO (these are also good indicators to measure how good of a job your SEO firm is doing):

• The total number of pages in the search engine index. Are all your pages being properly indexed by the search engines?
• The total mount of natural (organic) traffic.
• Is traffic to your website going up? Down? Staying the same?
• Track the number of pages/categories receiving the most traffic.
• Track the average number of keywords per page that is driving traffic.
• What is the length of keyword queries?
• What is the bounce rate per search engine/keyword?
• What is the average length of visit? Duration?
• What is the average number of pages being viewed per visit?
• How many new visitors/visitor loyalty are coming to your website?

A true SEO project - with true KPIs - should be looking at all the above factors in addition to search engine rankings.

We Moved!

We recently moved our offices to:

521 Monmouth St.
Newport, KY 41071

Our mailing address is:

P.O. Box 569
Newport, KY 41072-0569

All other contact information remained the same:

(866) 837-7095

www.purpletrout.com

 

Google Owns 65.3% Of Search Market

Recent statistics show Google owns 65.3% of the search market, followed by Yahoo! with a 15.5% share and Microsoft at 14.7%. Together - Bing Search - accounts for 30.2% of the search market share.

Ask accounted for 3% of recent search numbers, followed by AOL with 1.5%.

 

 

Keywords: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 171

When planning your search engine optimization strategy, it's easy to get caught up in targeting every keyword in the dictionary in hopes of earning high rankings on some keywords and little action on other keywords.

This brings up the all-important question of "how many keywords should you be targeting for your website?"

Recently, a SEO-know-it-all (who fails even with his black hat techniques) advised a local IT networking group that you should target three or four keywords per website page.

Wrong.

That's stuffing and it's an all-too-typical black hat technique that doesn't work. It doesn't make sense for the reader either because the keywords would be too forced for the content.

Remember, the content on your web page needs to support the targeted keyword. Can you really write enough content to truly convince Google that you should be ranked in the Top 3 on four keywords per page?

Very doubtful.

Here's the rule:

Target 1 keyword for 1 page.

Simple.

If you have a web page about chocolate chip cookies, there's certainly no need to mention sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies, etc. You'll only be writing about chocolate chip cookies, which makes perfect sense for the customer and perfect sense for Google.

SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 170

Pay Per Click can be a beast for most people, especially when it comes to setting up a PPC campaign, clicks, impressions, budgets, credit cards and Google.

The best way, in my opinion, is to start slow and dip your toe in the water.

Create a modest budget and stick to it (no matter what).

Target six keywords. Write a minimum of three ads so you can test which ad performs the best. And, above all, track your success.

SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 169

Improving traffic to your website is very simple: improve your rankings in search engines. Here's all you need to do: Focus more on those keywords that are currently ranked on the second page of search engine results. Do everything you can (ethically and within the rules and guidelines set forth by the search engine) in order to improve your position to the Top 10. Businesses able to move from the second page of search result to the first page had a 500% to 900% increase in traffic!