Archive for category Search Engine Optimization
How Much do Social Signals Improve Page Rank
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on September 4, 2012
At RoryMartin.com we stress the importance of a fully-integrated social media strategy for your company’s branding. Social media improves customer relations, draws in potential new customers, and allows your company to discover where improvements can be made to your business, directly from your customers. Social media increases the trust that your current and potential clients have in your company, and increases the liklihood of positive and immediate referrals from customers to their friends and followers.
However, a recent article on the SEOmoz blog asks the question “Do Improved Social Signals Cause Improved Rankings?” which is clearly a contentious issue for many social media consultants! The comments range from skepticism, to outrage, to full-on agreement.
The keyword in this question about social signals is ’cause’. How do you determine the final result of social signals?
Many of you will already be saying to yourselves that you’ve seen your website, or certain pages, go up in page rankings after having a link tweeted by a few influential tweeters, but as the article says – correlation does not equal causation. It’s often true that after a week or so, once people have moved on to the next fresh and exciting piece of content and have stopped tweeting and retweeting your piece, that you see search engine rankings drop once again.
The Freshness Factor
Some social media experts attribute this to a ‘freshness factor’ – the idea that search engines prefer new(er) content. Some say that during the period in which a link is being retweeted, it will also be linked to from websites. This may even be due to people who have their tweets displayed on their website. If they link to you in a tweet, it will appear on their website – but only until their new tweets push yours off.
It’s a complicated piece, and a complicated argument to make! When we see a number of social signals, or see an influential social signal coming into a website, and then see the page rankings shoot up, we want to attribute one to the other – whether this is true or not.
There are a couple of important takeaways from this in-depth research on social signals.
The first is that regardless of how many influential people you can ask to share a link, most people will only share good quality content. It may even be that what causes both the shares and the improved page rank is the quality of the piece. Focus on creating top quality content and your piece will garner a wide range of social signals, and move up the page rankings.
The second takeaway is that whether or not Google follows Twitter or Facebook links and uses them to attribute better page rankings to sites, social signals are still important. Having an integrated social media strategy means that more people will see your new piece sooner than not. This then leads to, not only social shares, but also links from websites – links which we know do affect SEO. The more people who view the piece, the more people are likely to create SEO-affecting links.
At RoryMartin.com we work to create integrated social media strategies for companies which involve top quality content that is infinitely shareable. What do you think of this research?
7 Solid Tips to Boost Your SEO from RoryMartin.com
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on August 23, 2012
1. Know your starting statistics
When implementing any strategy, it pays to know where you’re starting from, so that you can easily see if rankings and conversions have improved at any point in your SEO journey. This document can be as simple as you like; even a handwritten notebook will let you immediately spot increases (and decreases) in statistics such as conversions and inbound links.
2. Create solid, good quality content
The perceived Holy Grail of content is to create something which goes viral, but as a long-term strategy it’s better to create solid, good quality content on a regular basis, than occasionally put something extraordinary out there, and bulk up your website with mediocre content in between. Like EdgeRank with Facebook, if you put out something less than great, people aren’t going to be that keen to share and promote it, so in between viral episodes, you’re more likely to lose followers and alienate your audience.
3. Keep an eye on what’s topical
What’s trending on Twitter? What are other people in your field talking about? That viral video, does it have any themes which you could work from? While we don’t suggest you hurry something just to piggyback on the current top trending topic, it’s a good idea to see what’s creating a buzz during the week, and see if anything which you do can relate to that. Stay mindful of your long-term plans and company branding though!
4. Cultivate relationships with other sites
This goes hand-in-hand with tip #3. If your link-builder is out there every day, sourcing websites for links, these bloggers and journalists and website owners are going to prefer to link to a site which is consistently putting out good content. Here is a fantastic piece on why many link-building strategies fail: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-link-building-strategies-fail
5. Check your road map
Once you implement a new idea, or build that relationship link with a site or person, check your statistics to see what the relationship does for you. Are you finding that your traffic is slowly but surely increasing, but you’re not ranking any higher? Find out what’s causing that, and fix it. Remember that the point of SEO isn’t only to boost your rankings, but also to increase conversions. How are these statistics looking?
6. Don’t hang out in bad neighborhoods
Search engines can easily pick up on linkfarms, and other such sites, and blacklist them. There is almost no security or surety in purchasing links from sites like these, as they could be disregarded by search engines, or even cast a negative light on the sites which they are linking too, as well. Stick to building connections and writing good quality content for yourself.
7. Make your actions clear
Once all of this traffic has arrived at your site, you want to convert visits into customers. Make sure that your site is easily navigable so that your newly interested audience can immediately do what you want them to do on the site. Your social media profiles need to be obvious too, so that these visitors can quickly connect with you, and share what a great job you’re doing of being you!
We at RoryMartin.com hope that these seven tips improve your SEO and rankings. If you’d like more advice contact our experts today for a free estimate.
Content Marketing For Search Engine Optimization
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on June 20, 2012
Will content marketing ever replace traditional methods of garnering attention for your brand? This is a question which raises a lot of ire on the internet, as traditionalists point out that blogs and social media will never have the reach of an advertisement placed during the Super Bowl (as if every company can afford to do that!) and content marketers and search engine optimization specialists, like the team at RoryMartin.com, retaliate with the fact that people use search engines before doing anything: buying a product, booking a holiday, hiring a service, going out for dinner.
When people are using search engines to help them make all of their decisions, then your company needs to be ranking high for the keywords they’re plugging in. Content marketing is a part of search engine optimization, and it works like this:
Search engines love fresh content
We all assume that the latest news must be the most accurate, and so does Google. Having a blog which is updated weekly is the perfect way to start your journey to the top of the rankings.
Search engines search for authoritative sites
The way that a website’s authority is measured can vary between search engines, but a big part of authority is how many people are sharing your content. It’s unlikely with a static site that you’ll frequently get enough people linking to your page on Super-Cool Jacuzzi X9500 to boost it up the search rankings – unless you have an offer on! – but if you wrote a blog post about how to clean it, or the latest celebrity to purchase it, then you might find a lot of interested readers deciding their networks would be interested too. Social signals are very important in the early stages of ranking. If your article gets shared by many influential people, you get a higher exposure for a limited amount of time.
Search engines value consistency
Social media shares will boost your page rankings for a certain period of time. This is usually about a week, depending on how large your network already is, and where the post is being promoted. If your article is good, though, this is about the time that people will start linking to you.
There is no long-term ranking without links from one site to another, but if you are publishing new content weekly and it is being shared regularly, then your website should remain consistently ranking highly for your chosen keywords. In fact, you can choose different keywords to rank for each week!
Content marketing also builds familiarity, likeability and trust among current customers, potential customers and most importantly, people who interact online with potential customers. If you need to determine a content marketing strategy, RoryMartin.com’s social media and SEO experts can help.
Optimize Your Mobile Site for SEO and Reach a Wider Audience
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on May 18, 2012
With 1.2 billion mobile web users using their smartphones to search the internet every day, you need to make sure that your mobile site is grasping and keeping the attention of your audience. Here at RoryMartin.com, we strive to bring you the latest news and information on SEO and Social Media strategy, and we have advice for you on how to correctly optimize your mobile web site for the best user experience.
First off, think about why a user would come to your mobile site. What information are they looking for while on the move? Brands like Walgreens understand that most mobile users are looking for their nearest store, so location search is firmly at the top of their mobile site. Develop a searcher persona of a mobile user based on keyword, demographic and psychographic research. Motivations of this user ought to be the basis of your mobile site.
Once you have a site filled with content appropriate for mobile users, it’s time to think about SEO. Late last year, Google introduced a smartphone bot which access mobile sites in a similar way to iPhones, but they have been rather reticent on how the bot likes mobile sites to be optimized. Luckily, SEO experts out there have been working on figuring this out. Much of what is true for desktop SEO is true for mobile SEO: avoid duplicate content, avoid black hat techniques, and make sure your pages have tags relevant to the content.
However, there is one issue with mobile sites which might find your site ranking a little too low for your liking and that is 404 errors and misdirects. There is a risk that Google’s new smartphone crawler may be overly literal at first, and rely exclusively on the redirects that are in place, but not evaluate other signals or algorithmic elements. 404 errors on the mobile web can occur from something as typical as trailing slashes, or a misplaced capital in the url. Having lots of these errors on your site hinders crawling and indexing, and can cast your mobile site in a bad light. Check your content frequently for indexed 404 errors in Webmaster Tools to catch these issues as they arise, especially when adding more pages and redirects.
Finally: splash screens. There are a lot of people who think it’s a great idea to have a splash screen when someone first accesses their mobile site. We definitely want people to see something amazing when they come to our mobile site but from an SEO point of view, splash pages are a terrible idea, and their main effect is to cause visitors to leave your site!
If all of this seems a little too complicated, rest assured that we at RoryMartin.com are just waiting to work with you to improve the search engine optimization of your mobile site, and give you and your audience the benefit of our experience in social media marketing.
Have You Gone Overboard on Your Search Engine Optimization?
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on May 3, 2012
The rules of search engine optimization are always changing, and at RoryMartin.com we keep on top of those changes, for your benefit. Recently, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, made a comment about how the search engine will soon be penalizing sites which go overboard on their SEO. Some typical ways of improving rankings will now be responsible for pushing your site off the front page; maybe it won’t even appear at all.
Previously, search engines have assumed that a website or blog post which mentions certain words, over and over, will be relevant to that word, which seems logical. However, some SEO practices repeat certain words more than necessary, to the point where the website content becomes useless, but ranks highly. We are assured that keywords are still important, but optimization tricks such as duplicating content and writing repetitive post and page titles will be no-go. Primarily, the search engine will be looking for signs of life.
We’ve compiled a few tricks of our own to help your website and social media strategies stay afloat as the changes roll out.
To begin with, try to consolidate any duplicated content. For instance, if you have one page on ‘Decorative Lights’ and one page on ‘Fairy Lights’ with similar general product descriptions, this could work against you.
Too many links in your website could become a problem as well. It can be difficult to know where to draw the line, especially if you sell a main product and accessories – you will need a thoroughly linked website – but a footer full of arbitrary links is a distraction for the user and a point against you from Google.
Even too many links into your website can now affect you negatively, although this is mainly a problem if they come in from penalised websites. Instead of arranging linkshares with websites, try to cultivate a social media presence; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn links are all being integrated into Google search algorithms and are seen as more trustworthy – social media is all about people sharing useful links rather than bots spamming keywords, after all!
We want to help you improve your search engine optimization strategy, so if you’ve noticed a drop in your traffic, or if you’re just starting out with your website, get in touch and let us give you the advantage of our expertise.
Building a Better Keyword Strategy
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on August 22, 2011
We were reading SEOmoz’s 6 Keyword Research Mistakes post this morning, and since we love visual cues when it comes to Search Engine Optimization, we thought we should show off this Keyword Matrix from Skyrocket.
SEOmoz identifies the keyword categories in their post:
- Question marks – these are keywords in areas where growth is likely but at present you’re not getting the performance you’d expect. These are very often untapped keyword opportunities and you should plan how you are going to improve performance on these kinds of keywords.
- Stars – high-performance keywords and loads of room for growth – find ways to capitalise on growth. My advice is to focus your resources of gaining results in these areas for maximum ROI in a short period of time.
- Dogs – the poor performing keywords with little or no chance of growth – bin these in favour of other keywords, reallocate any resources to other areas.
- Cash cows – the high performing keywords that show little opportunity for growth – look for ways to enhance and maintain performance whilst identifying patterns and translating this learning to other areas or verticals
We found this little matrix helpful in determining which keywords to optimize, pairing it with Google’s Keyword Research tool. For more on how to generate great keywords, check out our post on choosing better keywords. Keywords play a large role in search engine optimization, and are a key factor in social media marketing. Having the right combination of keywords will generate hits, increase traffic and drive sales.
As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals. From a one-time site analysis to full search engine optimization strategy and execution, RoryMartin.com can help match your keywords to your SEO needs
Deciphering your Bounce Rate
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on July 7, 2011
In trying to keep visitors on your site, knowing your bounce rate is half the battle. It can be difficult to determine how your bounce rate is calculated and which factors affect your bounce rate. We found this cool infographic from KissMetrics that shows which factors you can work on to retain visitors, and it even shows the industry standard for your industry. Check it out!
As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand, draws and keeps visitors on your page. We help implement exciting content and social tools that will make your business stand out. From a one-time site analysis to full search engine optimization strategy and execution, RoryMartin.com can help your business grow.
Make Your Keywords Pack a Punch
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization on June 28, 2011
Keywords play a large role in search engine optimization, and are a key factor in social media marketing. Having the right combination of keywords will generate hits, increase traffic and drive sales; however, it’s not always easy to determine which keywords are right for you, and where your keywords aren’t packing a punch. At Rory Martin, we specialize in helping business come up with relevant keywords that drive traffic to their site. We do the research so businesses don’t have to.
– Ask yourself: What would my customers search for?
This seems relatively easy enough. If a customer would find your services by searching “freelance writer Los Angeles”, put that on your list. Your keywords might be words your competitors use or words that are industry specific. Think up simple terms and phrases that specifically target your site or business, but know that using one word is going to decrease the likelihood that your site will stand out in a crowd.
You will get higher search engine ranking by choosing a mix of specific longer phrases, and general targeted keywords. Look at the breakdown of search terms as they show up on Google:
|
Number of Google Matches |
Term |
|
11,600,000 |
writer |
|
1,200,000 |
real estate writer |
|
48,000 |
freelance real estate writer |
|
9,000 |
freelance real estate writer los angeles |
Source: WebsiteHelpers.com
You’re going to have an easier time getting click throughs if you narrow it down a little – by adding your location, but be cautious about being too specific. For example using “Neon Helmet Tacoma WA” won’t drive people to your site. Phrases that are just too specific may offer you the #1 slot on Google, but still won’t deliver the clicks you’re looking for, because they’re not keywords that people would search for. Ranking #1 on terms that nobody is searching for is just as bad as ranking #300 for terms that everybody is searching for. You can’t get the traffic if people aren’t using your search terms, no matter how well you’re ranked.
When you have a list of possible keywords, check out tools like Google’s Keyword Tool, that will help you determine whether or not people are actually searching for those keywords, by populating a list of terms related to the keyword you entered. Look for targeted keywords, and specific phrases that are relevant to your business and your industry.
Search Engine Optimization through keyword analysis is one of the most effective ways to increase targeted traffic to your web site. At RoryMartin.com, we put our Seattle Search Engine Optimization experts to work to research your target audience, determine what keywords they are searching on, and then make sure, through proven search engine optimization tactics, that your web site is the one they find.
As a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Seattle Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, RoryMartin.com can help you build a Social Media Strategy that reflects your unique brand and meets your business goals. From a one-time site analysis to full search engine optimization strategy and execution, RoryMartin.com can help match your keywords to your SEO needs.
The New Landscape of Social Media Marketing
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking on June 20, 2011
Navigating the new marketing landscape means knowing which marketing tactics are effective, and which tactics are outdated. Improving the visibility of your website has become a marketing priority, yet it can be frustrating since competition for rankings is intense. As many businesses lack the time or cashflow to continuously monitor, report and adjust their strategy, the results of many social media marketing campaigns are often poor. If you’re struggling to boost your page rank, you may need to adapt your SEO and social media strategy to reflect the new trends in social media marketing and search engine optimization.
If you’re not embracing social media as a business, you’re missing out on one of the biggest marketing tools available. Using tools like Facebook and Twitter actually boost your search engine rankings, making your website more visible to search engines like Google. Consider how much content is shared on Facebook each day – users spend approximately 22% of their Internet time in social media, making social media a priority for any company that wants to be visible.
Of course, just hiring an intern may not do the trick. While social media can be a valuable marketing campaign tool, it’s often a commitment. Hiring a professional will ensure that you get the best results from your brand’s digital communications. You want someone who can represent your brand and company, not just the message behind your brand. Social media has become an avenue for customer service, sales inquiries and ongoing questions – you want someone who understands your audience, and can think out of the box in a way that is both specific and familiar to your client base.
Hiring a professional will ensure that your message, and your core product do not get lost in a sea of irrelevant information. Anyone who’s been on the web knows just how much junk the web holds – having a true professional on your team will ensure that your relevant keywords and terms drive traffic to your page. A professional can tell you which information to include and which information is irrelevant. They can help you streamline your content, showing off your product’s benefits in a straightforward way. A social media professional can also help you determine terms that are broad and wide reaching, and help you optimize key words and phrases so that your site gets a good SEO ranking.
Content is still key on the web, and having someone who knows your brand, your clients and your company will ensure that users come to your website because you are an authority. Social media is all about providing something of value to your customers. You need interesting and relevant content, you need high-quality inbound and outbound links. You need customer interaction that is fun and info-rich. Monitoring industry key words and phrases will continually provide feedback on what your customer or audience is interested in, making a tailored social media strategy easier to attain.
RoryMartin.com is that secret weapon that will revolutionize the way you engage with your clients and end-users. We offer a comprehensive set of services from website design and web development to search engine optimization and search engine marketing and social media marketing. If you need creative ideas, easy implementation, and a limited investment into your social media campaign, RoryMartin.com has experts available to assess your needs, provide excellent customer service and innovative marketing tactics before you’ve even signed a contract.
Create the Best Copy for Your Website
Posted by Rory Martin in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing on June 17, 2011
There are a lot of tips out there on how to create effective copy for your website – especially for businesses who maintain a blog, regarding their services. Of course, these guides may be incomplete and often overly general. Fortunately, we’ve written down our favorite tips for generating effective copy that will drive traffic to your site, showing your business’s authority in your industry.
– Make sure your content is easy to read.
Keyword stuffing, technical jargon, and long-winded posts are often indicators of poor copy. These problems will make your website’s copy hard to read, especially since most web users scan web pages rather than read them word for word. To make your content easy to read, try using fewer words, simple terms, highlighted keywords, and bulleted lists. Another tip – try writing in inverted pyramid style, like you’d find in a newspaper. Try writing your conclusion first, then back it up with the details.
– Your copy should reflect your audience.
Be familiar with your audience – is there a common tone or style of writing that your audience expects to see? Think about how you’d tell someone about your product in a conversational way – you’re giving your reader tips (tips from Me to YOU). Highlight the benefits (not the features) of using your product. Include answers about what the product does. Write for how people will search for your page, using words your target audience would use to look for your services. Offer solutions, be entertaining and informative, grab your readers’ attention, use bold (but not cheesy) headings and brief explanations. And don’t just rely on keywords – use words that elicit emotion and action from potential customers.
– Avoid dense copy with no breaks.
Smaller chunks surrounded by white space are visually easier to digest. The use of effective headings is one great way to break content into chunks, using boldface type for emphasis. When using headings remember a few things: keep them to eight words or less; include important keywords; avoid the use of adjectives and prepositions (and, a, the, of); be clear and concise, avoiding wordy, wishy-washy phrases. Headings are great because you can place them on your homepage as a link to content, or use them in title tags around your links.
– Don’t let your website become a dead end.
Offer links to other information in your industry, and build relationships so that other sites link to you. Often, search engines like Google are based on their ability to find you from links on other sites. The web is all about being inter-linked.
– If you’re stuck, hire a professional.
RoryMartin.com has a team of Seattle Search Engine Optimization and keyword experts who can help you draft engaging copy that reaches out to your audience. We help clients educate their markets and build brand awareness while winning and retaining customers with engaging and impactful websites and web marketing.
RoryMartin.com, a Seattle Web Design company that specializes in Search Engine Optimization and Seattle Social Media Marketing, can help you build a strategy that speaks to your audience and puts your business on the map.
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