Category: GuestPost

Back to SEO Basics With Keyword Research

This post is reprinted from the High Rankings Advisor Newsletter. Subscribe to the weekly High Rankings Advisor newsletter for regular search engine advice from the experts.

I was speaking with a client the other day who commented on my home page, which talks about my tried-and-true SEO process. “Has your process changed much over time?” the client asked.

I stopped to think for a moment, and realized that while there have been plenty of Photo Credit: Valerie Everettincremental changes to my SEO process at any given point in time, the fundamentals have mostly remained the same. While Google likes to keep throwing curve balls at SEOs, their algorithm changes and new products and services don’t impact most well-developed websites.

It bothers me no end when I go to search marketing conferences to find perhaps 3 sessions that focus on SEO fundamentals, while 100 others focus on the superfluous SEO techniques du jour that may or may not bring more targeted visitors to your website. Don’t get me wrong – those more “advanced” sessions can provide awesome nuggets of information for those who already have their fundamentals in place. Yet sitting in on site clinic review sessions often reveals that most of the attendees’ websites have a long way to go with even the most basic SEO strategies.

With this in mind, today’s article focuses on your first line of SEO defense – keyword research. Optimizing for the wrong keywords — either those that are not truly relevant to what your business offers or those that aren’t being used by searchers — will have the dire consequence of making you think that SEO is mythical marketing magic that doesn’t work.

To make it easier for you to follow, I’ve broken down my keyword research process into the following 7 steps:

1. Brainstorm
2. Categorize
3. Research
4. Compile
5. Winnow
6. Determine Competitiveness
7. Choose

Brainstorm Keyword Phrases

Think about the various ways in which someone seeking your website’s product, service or information might type into Google. What phrases would they use if they were looking to buy what you offer? Jot down as many of these as you can think of. Ideally, you’ll want to look at every page of your website, because they usually have different focuses.

While your own ideas are important regarding what phrases people might use, you should also ask others to do the same thing. Find colleagues, family, friends and anyone else who might help. If you can run a small focus group consisting of people in your target market – that’s all the better!

Categorize Your Keywords

Using your brainstormed keywords, start to separate them into categories. I like to use an Excel spreadsheet with multiple worksheets for this. So, for instance, if you sell consumer electronics, you’d have multiple categories such as televisions, radios, computers, with specific keyword phrases listed under each category. For something as broad as this, you’d likely have multiple subcategories as well, such as plasma TVs, large-screen TVs, etc.

Research Your Phrases

Head to Google’s keyword suggestion tool and paste in your brainstormed keyword phrases, one category at a time. Using our consumer electronics example, you might plug in your brainstormed plasma TV keywords to start. Note: Be sure you’re logged into your Google account when using the tool or it won’t provide you with all the relevant keywords available.

After you submit your first set of brainstormed keywords through the tool, change the match preference from “broad match” to “exact match” or your data will essentially be useless. (You’ll see the keywords in square brackets if you’ve set it up correctly for exact match.) Take a quick look at the phrases that the tool spits out to make sure they’re fairly relevant, and if so, export them to a comma-separated values file (.csv).

Repeat this process for each of your categories and subcategories.

Compile Your Keyword Lists

Open each of your saved .csv files full of researched keywords, and paste them into the appropriate Excel worksheet, according to the category or subcategory in which they belong. At this point, you shouldn’t be too concerned with what the keyword phrases are or any of the numbers associated with them — you just want to compile your lists for use later. Having them all in one Excel workbook will make things a lot easier as you continue with the keyword research process.

Winnow Out Irrelevant Phrases

While Google’s keyword research tool gives you tons of relevant and related keywords to the brainstormed ones you originally entered, it also adds a lot of unrelated junk phrases. Now’s the time to remove them. There’s no easy way other than using your own brain to determine what’s related and what’s not. You can use Excel’s sorting and filtering tools, however, to search for specific words that you see a lot which you know are unrelated, and then remove them in one fell swoop. In the end, you should be left with lots of relevant keyword phrases for every category and subcategory of your website.

Determine the Competitiveness

The idea here is to learn which keyword phrases are within your reach. This simply means that they are phrases people use at Google, but many of your competitors may not have thought to optimize for them yet. Unfortunately, determining keyword competitiveness has proven to be one of the trickiest aspects of the keyword research process. It’s become even more difficult over the past year because Google doesn’t seem to want us to be able to do this easily. While their keyword research tool has a column for “competition,” it’s based on paid search, not natural search, and therefore I find it to be not very helpful in deciding the true competitiveness of any keyword phrase.

Using my method, I try to figure out how many web pages are using the keyword phrases in their title tag. My reasoning is: Because title tags are given so much weight by Google, any page that is using the phrase in their title tag is at least rudimentarily optimized for the phrase, and is therefore one of those that you’re competing against.

To do this, you can go to Google and type into the search box:

Allintitle: “your keyword phrase here”

…and see how many pages used the phrase in their title tags. One problem: While this works if you use it sparingly, as soon as you start doing a few allintitle searches in a row, our lovely friend Google will block you from continuing. (Have I told you lately how much Google dislikes SEOs?)

The only workaround I’ve found so far is to use Google’s Advanced Search page and search from there. It’s time consuming, no doubt, but the information can be valuable. Due to the difficulties with this process, however, these days I save it for only those keyword phrases that I feel are highly relevant to the website I’m optimizing.

You may ask, “What number of pages using the phrase in their title tag is a good or bad amount?” All I can tell you is — it depends. You’ll have to use your own judgment here based on your skills as an SEO and the market that you’re competing in, as well as your overall marketing budget.

Choose the Phrases for Which You Will Optimize

When trying to decide which keyword phrases to optimize your pages for, keep in mind that it’s not an exact science. The main criterion should always be relevancy. There’s no sense in optimizing for keyword phrases that are too general and untargeted that also have millions of other pages already targeting them. You’ll simply be wasting precious time that you could spend optimizing for the keyword phrases that completely and accurately describe what your site has to offer.

If a phrase is highly relevant to what you offer on your site, you should choose it, regardless of how many other pages are also using it. Just remember that if millions of other sites are optimized for your exact keywords, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. In which case, you will have to figure out why Google should show your page rather than your competitors’ pages, and make it so. If you’re going to be throwing lots of marketing dollars at your website, you can likely shoot for more competitive keywords than if you’re not doing any other marketing besides SEO.

Once you’ve completed all the keyword research steps above, you should end up with categorized lists of keyword phrases that you can then use to optimize each page of your website. Your next step will be to make a map of your site and choose 3 to 5 phrases that relate to each page, then work them in accordingly, based on sound SEO principles.

I hope this information provides you with a good start for creating your own tried-and-true SEO process!

Jill WhalenAbout the author: Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Services Company in the Boston, MA area since 1995. Follow her on Twitter  @JillWhalen

User-Friendly Website Navigation: How to Ensure Visitors Don’t Get Lost

Road Sign

Creating a well-organized, structured navigation system is essential for any website. Without an understandable, pragmatic system for instructing visitors what your website has to offer, and how they can reach it, your site is at a serious disadvantage.

Establishing a sensible navigational path is not difficult if you remember to pre-plan and take the necessary steps highlighted in this guide. Here are 8 essential principles you should take into consideration when designing a navigation system for your website:

1. Preparation

Navigation should be part of the website design process, not something added in after the main design has been completed. In order to provide an efficient and systematic navigation system, you must visualize how a visitor will access your website and move around all its various pages. Once you have constructed a user-friendly hierarchically linked navigational system, the next step is to consider the simplest way to explain your system to visitors.

2. Clarity and Brevity

Navigation should always be as simple as possible. The route to any point within your website should be as direct as you can make it. Many people still try to adhere to the old navigation guideline “No page should be more than 3-clicks away from the homepage”. While this guide has website navigation best interests at heart, it has become outdated. Websites are now far more complex and it is often necessary for visitors to use more than 3-clicks to reach their desired destination. There is no punishment for breaking the 3-click guide. But the aim of good navigation is to allow visitors to find what they are looking for in as few clicks as possible, without getting lost. Implementing a breadcrumb Trail system (covered in section 4) will help to address this problem.

The naming of navigational links should also be kept clear and concise. There is no need for ‘Homepage’ or ‘Main Page’ when a simple ‘Home’ will suffice.

3. Simplicity

It may be tempting to use flashy graphical menu buttons to make a website look more appealing but this can create issues. The problem does not lie with visitor confusion, it stems from page load speed. Graphics take longer to load than text. This is bad practice for two very good reasons.

Firstly, nobody enjoys waiting for a website that is struggling to display what it has to offer. Secondly, Google has openly stated that load speed is now a ranking factor. A complicated graphical navigation menu will probably affect page load speed and your site could suffer for it.

4. Website GPS

A website that cares about navigation should always include a breadcrumb trail. Usually located just below the top navigational menu, a breadcrumb trail allows visitors to see where they are and travel directly to any point along their current path. A typical breadcrumb trail could look like this:

Home>Products>Mobile Phones>iPhone

Anyone seeing this instantly knows they are in the iPhone section and they can just click the Mobile Phones link within the breadcrumb trail to go one category level above. Breadcrumb trails are a terrific navigational aid.

Another reason for always including a breadcrumb trail is that visitors may land on one of your website’s sub-pages via a search engine query. They may not know what category that page comes under unless they can see the hierarchical path in the form of a breadcrumb trail. Think of it as an essential guide rope that visitors will be very grateful for.

5. Sitemap

A sitemap is an essential for every website. Not only does it give a clear overview of your entire site, it is often used by search engine spiders to efficiently crawl a website. If you want to have a useful site-wide navigational map and have your website indexed successfully, you will need a sitemap.

6. No Place Like Home

There must be a clear link back to your website’s homepage from every other page. This could be in the form of a ‘HOME’ navigational tab, or a simple textual link at the bottom of each page. Whatever the format, a website should always offer visitors a direct route straight back to its primary page.

A common way to achieve this is to link your websites header graphic, title, or logo to the homepage. This is fairly standard now and most visitors will expect to be able to click one or all of these and be returned to a homepage.

7. Consistency

The navigation for any website should remain the same no matter where a visitor lands. It looks unprofessional and proves inefficient to have different navigational options on different pages. The navigational system you choose should be obvious enough to be easily visible to visitors but subtle enough to meld in with your website’s overall design.

8. Instantly Accessible

A visitor should not have to scroll down to see a navigation menu. Anyone landing on a site must be able to see the options available to them without excessive searching. It is good practice to include a top navigation bar that includes your main categories at the very least. This needs to be in the top-third of the page.

Good navigational systems will also have a bottom navigational menu, or footer. This allows anyone who reaches the bottom of page content access to navigational links with no need to scroll up unnecessarily.

You should spend time and effort creating a great looking website. You will need to fill it full of quality, relevant content and remember to update this regularly. Then you have to work on search engine rankings to capture those organic visitors. But all of this is pointless if the people visiting your site then have trouble discovering what the site has to offer.

Prepare and implement a simplistic, efficient, reliable navigation system and help visitors and search engines travel and locate every piece of content your site contains.

About the author: Roko Nastic is editor at WebmasterFormat, a useful resource for those wanting to learn how to build better and more profitable websites and how to find best web hosting companies.

Fun with Linux File Permissions

I know the look on your face. There is no use trying to hide it. You are thinking that the three words “Linux”, “file”, and “permissions” cannot possibly be associated with the word “fun”. Many system administrators and web developers have spent sleepless nights trying to figure out which permissions they had wrong that caused their websites to spew awful words at them like “500 Internal Server Error”.

It is true, working with file permissions on any operating system can be a very ugly experience. Nevertheless, Linux file permissions are actually quite simple, and with the right amount of focused knowledge, you can be well on your way to becoming a permissions expert in a minimal amount of time.

Ownership

Before we dip into the permission well, it is important to understand the concept of ownership. In Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, every file is owned by a user, and every user belongs to a group. For example, fileX may be owned by a user named Bob of the group also named “bob”. Therefore, the ownership will look like: “bob:bob”.

Bob may also be a member of the “audio” group with other users, such as Mary. Therefore, a file with the ownership “mary:audio” may allow Bob to have certain access to it, depending on the permissions.

The command to change ownership of a file is “chown”. For example, to change fileX ownership from Bob to Mary, use the following command:

# chown mary:mary fileX

This will set the ownership of fileX to the user “mary” in the group “mary”.

Permissions

Like ownership, Linux permissions have a few basic rules. There are only three permissions to learn: read, write, and execute. “Read” is the ability to view a file. “Write” gives the user permission to modify it (or delete it). “Execute” turns binaries and scripts into executable programs.

There are three types of users that can have permissions: owner, group, and other. “Owner” refers to the user who owns the file, while “group” includes any user within the group associated with the file. “Other” gives permissions to everyone. “Other” is also sometimes called “world”, “all”, or “global permissions”.

With three permissions and three user types, there are a limited number of possible combinations. Once you know this, it becomes easier to decipher.

Each permission is represented by a letter:

Read = r

Write = w

Execute = x

Each user type may include zero or more of those letters. For example, a file with write permissions for the user and the group and only read permissions for others will look like: -rw-rw-r–. This can also be represented numerically as 664 (with 6 meaning write and 4 meaning read only).

As another example, a file with read,write, and execute permissions for the owner, and only read and execute permissions for group and other would be: -rwxr-x-r-x or 755. According to the web server hosting company 34SP.com, web scripts should have at least a 755 permissions setting, since they need to be executed from the web.

The basic numeric permissions that you need to know are:

7 = full read,write, and execute

6 = read and write

5 = read and execute

4 = read only

0 = no permissions

In almost all situations, the owner of the file will at least have read and write permissions (6). To change permissions in Linux, there is a command called “chmod”. For example, if you wanted to deny permissions for everyone but the owner, you would enter the command:

$ chmod 600 fileX

To grant read only access to your file:

$ chmod 644 fileX

To grant global executable permissions:

$ chmod 755 fileX

To give the user and group write permissions but deny others:

$ chmod 664 fileX

For full read, write, and execute permissions for everyone (usually not a good idea):

$ chmod 777 fileX

In addition to numeric representations, chmod can also use letters. For example, to make a file executable (755), type:

$ chmod a+x fileX

To grant read only permissions (644):

$ chmod a-x fileX

With chmod and chown you can also change permissions and ownership for directories and their contents. To change an entire directory and its contents to full permissions for the owner and executable permissions for everyone else, type:

$ chmod -R 755 directoryX

The “R” flag makes the command recursive, which will cause it to apply the changes to the directory and any files and subdirectories found within it. Because it can potentially change a large number of files, use it with caution.

Learning More

A great way to learn more about Linux file permissions is to give it a try. Create some plain text files with or without content and try changing permissions and ownership of the files. Try out as many different combinations as you can until you feel comfortable working with real files. With a little practice, Linux file permissions can be quick, easy, and maybe even a little fun.

About the Author: Guest poster Tavis J. Hampton is a librarian and writer with a decade of experience in information technology, web hosting, and Linux system administration. He currently works for LanternTorch.Net, which offers writing, editing, tech training, and information architecture services.

Guest Post: The Essential Guide To Effective Online Press Release Marketing

About the guest blogger: This post is by Lauren Horn, Digital PR Specialist at ProspectMX.

With a majority of research being performed online, several high ranking search engines play a primary role in delivering news in a timely and efficient manner. Since the internet is such a valuable resource, not only are customers searching online, but journalists and new the media (bloggers and just about everyone that touches a keyboard) are as well.

Gone are the days of hardcopy press kits and bulk mailings. In 2011, we will start to see the greater effect of internet marketing and the role of social media. For instance, it was debated from the 2010 VMA’s this September that a tweet may replace a news release, or at least for celebrity entertainment news. However, the press release will continue to live on as it still serves as the primary source for media news, Facebook Notes, Twitter, and blog feeds.

The format of an online news release is written in the same general format as a traditional press release, but usually contains anchor text, or clickable words (keywords), to the site that is being promoted. The overall format of an online press release is typically a one-page document consisting of about 400-600 words.

To get the most of out of press release marketing, the combination of optimizing content, utilization of distribution services, creating an eBlast campaign, and engaging in social media outlets are critical elements for the success.

Optimization of content

The root of many failures beginning with online press release marketing is that many press releases lack content that emphasizes relevant and relatable keywords. Optimization of content is vital, helping to provide greater web visibility, increase in traffic and higher rankings. Much like SEO and PPC campaigns for website enhancements, there is a process for determining which keywords are of value. Once you know which keyword silos you want to put in place, the solution is to optimize the press content. To do so, imbed no more than one or two keywords within the introductory paragraph of the release for greater visibility.

Distribution through online outlets

Once the content of the news release is optimized and keyword silos are placed strategically, pinpointing useful distribution outlets and properly submitting the press release to online newswire services is a must. When done correctly, the links contained in the press release will serve as anchor text links helping to dramatically increase online market visibility, press coverage, generation of leads, and serve as driver for sales revenues.  When a major site picks up a release, it’s granted immediate creditability with worldwide recognition. Also, if the release is redistributed, often by other news sources on different sites, the value of the press content is even greater.

Editors, bloggers and other media enthusiasts with an interest in news get email alerts when press releases are submitted in categories they subscribe to. In doing so, allows the media sources to review the content online and determine which ones are relevant to their interest. The best, most pertinent topics covered are then published on their sites, displaying the full release, news story or a blog post. This means more effective SEO link building as well as even greater publicity.

For further reference, a few newswire distribution services include the following:

eBlast Campaign

Every marketing and public relations department has their own target media list. So, to guarantee the targets of interest actually receive the news release, eBlast campaigns are established. All that’s needed here is an email list, creative or catchy subject line (usually no more than 5-8 words) and insertion of the press release within the body of the email.

Social Media Involvement

It’s all about engagement and offering fans and followers with news and information in real-time. So why not send a tweet directing to the press release or insert the press release content within the “Notes” portion on a Facebook Fan Page? Keep customers and targets involved and in the loop. Also, don’t be afraid to create a blog post based on the message and content provided within the body of the release.

Syndication of content will assure you results. With use of optimization, compelling content and relevant messaging and branding, a press release marketed online will build traffic, web presence, rankings, and leads.


Guest Post: Dear Google, Stop Making Me Look Like a Fool

This post is reprinted from the High Rankings Advisor Newsletter. Subscribe to the weekly High Rankings Advisor newsletter for regular search engine advice from the experts. I would like to second guest author Jill Whalen’s plea to Google to make it less rewarding for the spammers and more rewarding for the folks who are playing by the rules.

Dear Google,

I’m tired of you making me look like a fool.

I’ve spent a good portion of the last 10 years patiently explaining to business owners and budding SEO enthusiasts that the key to being found in Google is to have one, great, Photo Credit: Eschipulall-encompassing website. That throwing up multiple keyword-rich domain doorway sites is a fool’s errand. That writing crappy articles and submitting them to networks full of other crappy articles is a waste of time and bandwidth. That keyword-stuffed gibberish on your website just makes it look stupid. That link farms are spammy.

And I really thought that by 2010 all of the above would be 100% true. And yet they’re not. I’m not sure if they’re even 50% true.

Now don’t go telling me that you’ll eventually catch all that stuff – because that’s what you’ve been saying for years and yet you don’t. Even when it’s repeatedly pointed out to you. I just don’t believe you anymore. I see the same search engine spam showing up today that I saw and pointed out 5 years ago. I see keyword domains and URLs that have nothing of value, yet they show up highly in the search results only because the URL matches exactly. I see fake links trumping natural links everywhere I turn. I see how one company with 10 similar but different websites can dominate the top 20 results.

The worst part is how you’ve single-handedly created the entire link-building and link-buying industries. Link building is the most distasteful, horrible act to have to perform for a website. It’s unnatural and something that should not even exist. Which is why I’ve always told people to have a link-worthy site and get the word out about it to the right people (through marketing) and they’d receive great links.

But you’ve made a liar out of me. While that naïve suggestion can definitely bring links to a website, they rarely have the best anchor text that you require. You put way too much stock in anchor text, which one rarely receives through natural links. This in turn forces people to beg for or buy the “unnatural” links that you claim to dislike, but are secretly in love with.

Google, I’m sure you’re aware of the companies that charge as much as $50,000 a month to write useless articles and spin them through spam-generating word-mixer-upper software (which turns a few articles into hundreds). Then they pop some keyword-rich anchor text links into their client’s website and upload them to their network of thousands of blogs and fake review sites where the nonsensical (but appropriately linked) articles get posted.

And it works! Yes, Google, those keyword-rich links on crap sites hugely boost the rankings for the targeted website in YOUR search results – and for highly competitive phrases, no less. It’s true that those links won’t last or count for very long (cuz you’re not that stupid), but because they continually repeat the process, it does indeed keep working. As long as the client is willing to pay for polluting the Internet (and for your search results), it works.

It’s sad, Google. It really is.

If the fake link building didn’t work so well, or the keyword-rich multiple domains never got ranked, maybe the companies looking for better placement in your search results would invest their money in the creation of amazing websites. But why should they? It’s a lot easier for them to generate the spam that you love, Google, and point it to their small lead-generation website(s). Sigh.

Anyway, Google, I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know. Just let me know when you find an algorithm that really does reward the good stuff and not the bad. In the meantime, I’ll keep telling people to make their websites be the best that they can be for their users so that there might be a few less horrible websites showing up at the top of your search results.

But when they ask me whether my way works better than spamming you, I’ll have to tell them the truth.

Your friend,

Jill

P.S. I just got an email from someone asking if it was okay with you if they bought 10 keyword-rich domains and created “satellite sites” out them that point to their main site. I told them yes/no/I don’t know. Sigh.

P.S.S. You’re still way better than the other search engines!

Jill WhalenAbout the author: Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Services Company in the Boston, MA area since 1995. Follow her on Twitter @JillWhalen

A guest post elsewhere . . .

I wrote a guest post for My Online Business Journey titled Tips for Disclosing Affiliate Links. Here’s the intro:

The FTC recently added bloggers to its guidelines about endorsements and testimonials in advertising. For bloggers this means any product review or endorsement that contains affiliate links must be treated with full disclosure.

Full disclosure is nothing more than transparency about the fact that a click on a link could potentially earn the blogger some money. It’s a simple process to provide the needed transparency, either in plain text or with a bit of information placed in the HTML for the link.

I’m experimenting with guest posts using MyBlogGuest. One post has appeared here that came from MyBlogGuest. This is my first guest post on someone else’s blog that was arranged through MyBlogGuest.

What I’m looking for with guest posting is a win-win exchange: posts here are good for readers of this blog and help the writer gain some traffic – and my posts elsewhere are good for the other blog and bring me some new readers.

Check it out: Tips for Disclosing Affiliate Links.