SEO Agency Update to Marketing

The GURU: JL 2/28/2018 visited us fresh from pubcon. Here's the update.... 

AMP - accelerated mobile pages - BIG DEAL Costly in terms of maintenance Image work amp dot ig - <?> 

Structured snippets - Increased emphasis on schema.org Typically events Tickets News Location Reviews Breadcrumbs Questions by us. 

Impact of Voice search. Relevant? Secure pages - Oct https rollout was moved out to April from October. Good to have both in search console, Get both verified. Compare. I’ll check on https for blogger. Rewarded across the board. 

New search console - Fully rolled out in January. Old features not all there, ie fetch and render. Now has a YonY data and we still need to archive after 15 or 18 months. Has great features on what to fix. But now it requires fixes. Page speed tool removed and now integrated into lighthouse thing. Testmysite with Google will be page speed measure. Lighthouse: good for 1st look at what’s wrong with a website. Visual and quick. 

Question of what Google is really measuring. Is it first render? Full paint? What’s the right measure? Pay attention but more towards problems 

PPC - microPPC - Frequency that a person sees it. If you are trying to save budget, limit to a few a day. Set up an audience to improve quality. Example, layer in “female” and “mother” . There’s also interest categories. Bing serves ads in the timeframe of the user. <weird> Low time on site audience - block them. Block spam bots. Rev.com will do closed captioning for $1/minute and translations and transcripts. 

Chat bots - Huge capabilities. Mobilemonkey is an example only on Facebook (will it go cross platform with paid version?).. This is the future. Awesome. Home advisor. 1800 flowers. Like a progressive web app. John is 100% on board with it. Mitsuku per Brett. Super user friendly. Zootopia marketing was around it. “Skills” - like Alexa skills. Looks futuristic. Skills are like apps. Roger. Tie Alexa into sdk of student planner. 

2017 Big SEO Initiatives 

Mobile friendly - still a big deal. What is the real measure? A technical check (the mobile friendly label no longer works) with the Google checker. 

Https Speed Schema and answer box - Get the answer box results. There are now tools for monitoring. What are they? SEO traffic spikes usually links back getting an answer box. Lots of sniping to beat each other for key searches. 

Organic search is down….on mobile, the ads just win. But the search volume seems solid. “Homeschool” broad match - is it down by 6% - Why not ask Google reps? $1.5M paid search in Google. Netplus. Give credit to JL and the agency for our spend. Get direct access to google team for questions 

Segments & filters to distinguish between brand traffic and real search Can’t do it in console Can do it in GA Filters are for forward. Will segments or channels work going backwards? 2013: Dropped details in GA with https. Keep marketing your brand. And buy your name.

SEO 2016: What's Hot?

These six points are worth remembering as we write for SEO on our resource and game pages:

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2016/29906/six-top-seo-factors-in-2016

I'll summarize;

1. Be thorough, write a lot. 1900 words is the average page winning on Google. Put lots of paragraphs on SEO pages, perhaps folded into open/closing paragraphs.

2. Links are key. Keep getting them.  I think anchor text pointing to the page matters a lot.

3.  Schema: minor, don't worry about it.

4.  Don't stuff. I'm adding: DO write with content vocabulary.

Bad description: "While sometimes confusing, figurative language can often be powerful and illustrative" - Google won't find much here to go on.

Good meta description: "Figurative language, such as metaphors and similes and personifications, can make your writing more powerful"  - Lots of contet vocabulary there and it starts with the keyword!

I'm also adding: each page gets a unique meta description and meta keywords

5. Site speed matters!!!!

6.  Reduce your bounce rate, increase time on site.

I'm adding:

- responsive matters

- local addresses matter

- social media matters

- grouping of pages into a cluster on a common topic matters. And google can think in n dimensions. A figurative language page can be part of multiple clusters by both linking and content such as:

    - literary writing: similes, metaphors, reading, writing, personification

     - education and standards, classes, schools, students, teachers, grades, educational standards, CCSS etc

   - grade level 

 

Google in late 2013

This year, Penguin and Hummingbird were announced and our sites pretty much trucked along, untouched by anything. We grow.

This banner is linked to Google.com with a title tag of Best Search engine
Is this a white or black hat technique?

The big question, has our traffic from Google been disrupted?

The fact is, we don't know. We don't track it that closely.  I couldn't tell if our search engine traffic has moved up or down. Generally, I think it's about the same but then, when I actually look up our SERP in Google, I get the impression that we have moved off the first page for large numbers of terms and phrases.

1.   Track SERP position.  We should be checking Webmaster tools regularly both for messages from Google and to track our SERP. We should also get some tool, perhaps Raven at $99/month or some integration with Adwords, so that we have a tracking of the historical pattern of our position.

2.  White Hat vs Black Hat is getting grey.  In the old days, I could say that we just don't do anything that would be sleezy and get us in trouble with Google. Our efforts were primarily to build content and organize it well.  We never bought text links or did anything else that Google would frown at.  Now however, it seems that some of our programs might get us in trouble.  For instance, I have participated in many forums and blogs and used the name of our site in my signature.  Google is now saying that all those links should be "no followed" but realistically, does anyone care over small volumes of such things? Also, many blogs and forums don't give you that much control over your signature on comments and blogs.

3. It seems like the press releases are now a focus for google. We have done press releases, 3-4 per year for half a decade, in which we have optimized them to focus attention on pages with keyphrases of importance to us. It turns out that we won't be doing that any more.

BTW, I'd like to keep writing this article but I've been horribly distracted by a NPR interview with Bill Cosby about his A-D-D and this page with info on the evolution of the Google logo (was I supposed to "No Follow" this too or is it that somehow wrong according the Google's New Testament?):

Contents
1996–1997 (prelaunch)	1997	1997–1999	1999–2009	2009–2013	2013–present

SEO Quake

I'm a little out of my depth here so once again, I'm returning to the roots of this blog. As I study different issues and tools, I write about them trying to build some understanding. Blog readers can learn with me. Hopefully, some of you have some info to contribute which will help me build my understanding. Todays topic:

SEO Quake

Seoquake is a powerful tool for Mozilla Firefox and for Internet Explorer, aimed at helping web masters who deal with search engine optimization and internet promotion of web sites. Seoquake allows user to obtain and investigate many important SEO parameters of the internet project under study on the fly. This is from their site and I find it vague.

SEO Quake seems to be a plugin or addon to the browser. It provides an array of information about a webpage.

I think a portion of AdSpy is provided as part of SEO Quake. When you see a google advertisement, it tells you how many other websites have google ads from that same account! But, to get the list of sites, you must subscribe to AdSpy. The AdSpy site is not that helpful in terms of figuring out the price. If you go into the sales funnel, you find out that it's $67. It's never said whether this is for a month, a year, or forever or what is included. The user agreement is a standard doc with T&Cs about payment & refunds without any of these details.

SEO Quake provides the following information right on screen for each website or webpage: Google PR rank, Google links, Yahoo links to the page, Yahoo links to the domain, Alexa rank, date of listing of domain, delicious rating, whois info, and internal and external links to (or is it from?) this page.

It's an incredible tool which would be more useful if it was a little better documented and so easier to get started with. With one page of explanation of what we are looking at and why it's important, this "insiders" tool could become widely useful.
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Why do I need one of those blog thingys?

I was just reading LisaDesign's blog, a web designer in Rapid City. And she gave the most charming answer that I've heard as to how blogs help:

It's like candy for search engines.

It's a cuter way of saying (and I quote an old post of mine and some speaker years ago): Blogging is also a great way to build position in the search engines. Its been suggested that B-L-O-G is not so much an abbreviation for Web-Log but the secret to a Better Listing On Google.

Her post explains how each article contributes to your position: like "compounding interest". I like Lisa's writing and analogies...Her website is nice, her blog is beautifully written. And I'm sure when she has time she'll upgrade her blog to SEO-friendly URLs...

For those who don't know what a search engine friendly URL is. Look at Lisa's blog. The most recent article has this URL: http://lisawebdesigns.com/?p=71

Google reads this and can't find much in that URL to help it "digest" her content. If she had SEO friendly URLs, it would read: http://lisawebdesigns.com/why-do-i-need-one-of-those-bloggy-thingys.htm . Of course, this would help Google understand that her article has something to do with things and needs and bloggies. So with user-friendly URLs, you start paying a little more attention to searched keywords and a little less to extreme cuteness. While SEO friendly-URLS are only one part of Google "digesting" your content, every little bit helps. I was working on a site built in druple today (about learning today) in which you get to tell the system the keywords to use in the URLS.

How do I know all this blog stuff? It's because I'm the co-creator and one of the first students of a course on blogging. Let me recommend that if you are starting or thinking of starting to blog, you take this course. It's fun and you learn in 8 pleasant weeks, what could take you a year of figuring out on your own, the hard way.

One last blog point: I am frequently asked what blog software people should I use? Blogger? Wordpress? Typepad? Should it be hosted on a private domain (like Http://www.BBat50.com or http://www.parentaltech.com) or sit on a shared site (like this one on http://learn-to-market-online116.blogspot.com/ or http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/edmouse)?

The long answer is take the blogging class, the short answer is that you should start by just using a shared host somewhere since it's easier and you can move it later. Do pay attention to use the most recent version of whichever software you choose. I love the recent versions of both WordPress and Blogger. The older versions are just a pain compared the simplicity of the new ones.

This post sponsored by the best homeschool curriculum.....Time4Learning.com

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Blog posts, corrections, RSS & Feedburner - How does it work?

I sometimes (often) make mistakes in my blog posts. After I publish them, I notice the errors and I open up the post and fix them. I've often wondered whether after hitting the publish button, will my corrections show up on every instance of my post or not?

For instance, I use feedburner to publish my posts. I've learned that feedburner sends out the posts at the end of the day (maybe Califorinia time). So as long as I make corrections during the day, the errors don't show up in the versions that get emailed out.

But, my posts also get published thru feedburner to countless readers thru RSS. And this blog is also hooked up to blogcatalog.. I just looked at my posts insider blogcatalog and my post from about 15 minutes ago is not yet there. But, once it appears there, if I make a change in the original, will it get fixed there?

I will now run an experiment. I am going to go back to my post of Tuesday May 27th, 2008 and I'll change the ending:
from: Dear reader, what would you do?
to: Dear readers, what would you do? I'm willing to pay for a real answer to this question. Contact me for details.

And I'll see whether the version in blogcatalog changes. Also whether the version in my google reader changes



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Learning SEO - Keyword density....and other BS...

One of my colleagues, studying and learning about SEO, asked me about keyword density. He'd been speaking to an SEO expert who talked about his great results by focusing on 4.5% (or something) keyword density. He wanted to know what my opinion was.

My opinion is that it's bunk. Or at least, learning about and focusing on something like keyword density, is a million miles away from my understanding of and approach to placing well in the search engine. It's technical and finicky and dumb to interest.

I take the view that google has a constantly shifting algorithm. And to figure out what to do, start by trying to put yourself in google's shoes. How does Mr Google decide who to rank for a given term?

First, google looks for pages that are relevant which are pages that use that term alot. Say the term was "learning games", google starts by finding pages that talk about learning games. Specifically, gooogle considers (in this order);
- Do incoming links to that page use "learning games" as anchor text?
- Is the page's title: "learning games"?
- Is "learning games" in the URL, particularly in the domain name?

Then,
- are there H1 and H2 titles that are "learning games"?
- Are there at least a few uses of the term "learning games" on the page? Lets guess that google gives you top marks for this criteria if you have between 1% and 8% keyword density on the page. Below 1%, you might not really be about learning games. Above 8%, it's probably a stuffed spammy page.
- Do the links to your page come from pages that are full of learning games?
- Does your site in general have lots of learning games?
- Are other terms, that are statistically and semantically linked to learning games, such as "an educational game", showing up in on the page, on the domain, on the pages and domains from which your links come from, and on the pages that this page points to.

My point is this. For relevancy, there is no magic percentage that is better than another. The difference between a keyword density of 3.4% and 5.3% makes no logic as a focal point for google's ranking or for an SEO's effort. It might have worked but going forward, it can't be part of the plan.....

After finding some relevant pages, google then ranks them by links. They count the links. Do all links count and do they all count the same? That folks, is a story for another day

This is my $.02 on understanding and learning and educating myself about SEO. And my effort at promoting what I care about: learning, education, fun, and games. Like this one. Learning & teaching seo.



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CoHosted Links Discounted by Google - Truth or Myth

Following up on my question as to whether google discounts links from sites that are hosted together, I've found a new release that suggests other people seem to feel the same way....(and I quote / paraphrase)

June 28, 2007 - SEO Hosting, a division of Host Gator web hosting, announced today .... a new service enables customers to optimize their web sites for search engines by hosting on multiple C classes.

The new service stemmed from customers regularly asking Host Gator for multiple C Class capabilities because of their belief that search engines will penalize sites that have the same C class and are linking to each other. With multiple C Class capabilities, customers no longer have to work with different hosting providers to overcome this problem and can consolidate all their sites on SEO Hosting.

Does this matter at my small size? For instance, I have four generators of links hosted at the same place:
Todays Learners
Parent Homeschooling Forum
SpellingCity
Learning Games

Link Importance Taxonomy

I just met the very impressive Joe Laratro who we will probably hire for some inhouse SEO classes or PPC

We had an interesting discussion about what links count more than and he pointed me towards a presentation by Todd Malicoat . I thought it was great but pointed out that it wasn't complete or at least, it didn't address the type of questions that I had. I remember worrying alot about how to best harvest google juice and writing on link importance back in Jan 06 (and other times I'm sure)

I'll update my thoughts on link importance and I'd be honored if Joe uses this to refine his teaching in this area:

Image links vs text links. Text links are better although image links with alt text are better than just a banner. For the unitiated, many image links on sites are run thru a javascript adserver engine meaning that there is no followable link.

Single links on a page versus multiple. Each additional link divides the link power on the page accordingly. I'm still unclear on whether if Site A & B start with the same google power, which site's links are more powerful:
- Site A - has 5 outgoing links on one page, 4 pages with no links
- Site B - have 5 pages, each with one outgoing link

Relevancy: relevant is more important than irrelevant by a big ratio... Arguably, this is the most important.

Multiple links on a site - The 2nd link on a site is less valuable than the first. The second link to you on a page is less valuable than the first. The 3rd in both cases is even less important and so on. So, don't think a link on each of 20 pages is 20x better than a link from the site.

The Value of Links from Different sites - More important to Less Important (my list)

Best - Authority sites (including .edu, .gov, or any site that is at the top of the search engine for significant terms).

Original Unaffiliated Articles on blogs, websites, or forums that quote and link to your site (they probably count the same if they are set up right meaning that url, page name, keywords, and content are relevant and original. And that the content is substantative)

Original Unaffiliated Articles on blogs, websites, or forums that link to your site

Directories

Affiliated sites (either co-owned, co-hosted) - I'm not sure if google is yet looking to see if there are shared adsense, adwords, or webmaster management tools to determine affiliation and I'm surprised that more people don't ask this question.

Duplicate content - An article with links that shows up on two sites is of less value on the second site. And on the 3rd etc.

Worst - Reciprocal links - While some of this is OK, google will notice alot of it and will particulary dislike irrelevant links or links to spammy places.

PS - I think a fun project would be to quantify some of this...How heavy is the depreciation of the 2nd link to your site from the same page versus the 2nd link from the same site, different page...

Site Stats for Blogger

Site statistics for my blogger blog have been a sore spot for me for a long time.

Today, problem solved!!!! :-> !!!!

I hooked up the site stats for blogger from feedburner (recently acquired by Google) and wow, I now know where the people are coming from.

Oddly, although this blog is brilliantly written, it gets little to no traffic - :-<
So I will now experiment by changing the name a little bit to see if that improves traffic. I just focused the name on the concept of learning online marketing, learning seo, and intermediate level seo. I'll see if that helps. I de-emphased online Q&A.....

SEO Abbreviations Glossary

404 - page not found. Most sites redirect the user to a standard page when the requested page does not exist
504 - aredirect from one page to another (when the first page is obsoleted)
B2B - business to business
B2C - business to consumers
BOT - short for robot (an automated self-running process)
BLOG - short for weblog, also suggests a Better Listing On Google (Joke)
BTF - below the fold
CPA - cost per action
CPC - cost per click, or, cost per customer (a source of ongoing confusion)
CPM - cost per thousand views, a rate used for advertising and banner sales
CTR - click thru rate
CSV - common separated values, a data format often used for transport between systems
FAQs - frequently asked questions
FFA - free for all meaning anyone can add a link.
DMOZ - Directory MOZilla, the open directory project, a human edited directory that was a big deal in the 90s
DNS - domain naming service, the lookup system of table coorelating names (such as www.spellingcity.com with numerical IP addresses
GUI - graphical user interface
HTTP - hypertext transfer protocol, meaning the info to come is in HTML
HTTPS - secure/encrypted HTTP
HTML - the code used to write web pages - hypertext markup language
IBL - inbound links
IM - instant messaging
IP - Internet Protocol, usually used as short for "IP Address", each computer and router on the net has a unique numerical address such as 192.117.80
IT - information technology meaning computers and such
JPEG - an image format, joint photographers expert group
LTV - liftetime value of a customer
OBL - outbound links
PFI - pay for inclusion
PPC - pay per click
PR - Google PageRank (named for Larry Page punning on his name)
ROI - return on investment
SEM - search engine marketing
SE - search engine
SEO - search engine optimization
SERP - search engine results page
SQL - standard query language, an architecture/protocol common to modern databases
UI - user interface
URL - web address
WWW - world wide web, a great moniker to help people understand the internet. I wonder who coined the expression?
XML - eXtensible Markup Language, a new language augmenting HTML for better organizing data and meaning