Relevance reads the SEOMOZ blog in November so you don’t have to. This SEO blog summarises what has been going on in the SEOMOZ blog in November 2012. Lots of interesting SEO articles about the Google algorithm, social SEO, life of a tweet, and lots more interesting web marketing tips.
SEO Moz Blog Summary – Learn about the Google Algorithm and lots more
A week in the life of 3 Keywords – brilliant blog discussing the life of 3 keywords tracked every 10 minutes to find out if Google is constantly shuffling rankings or that there is in fact a lot of noise in search engines.
Dr. Pete advises not to “don’t over-interpret one change in one ranking over one time period. Change is the norm, and may indicate nothing at all about your success. We have to look at consistent patterns of change over time, especially across broad sets of keywords and secondary indicators (like organic traffic). Rankings are still important, but they live in a world that is constantly in motion, and none of us can afford to stand still.” Here at Relevance we have found that rankings can take months if not years to improve. Continued good online PR will pay rewards in the end.
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/a-week-in-the-life-of-3-keywords
Life of a Tweet – Pete Bray discusses the life of a tweet – “for half of the users sampled, 18 minutes or less was the time it took for half of their tweets’ RTs to occur.”
How do you make your tweets last longer – get more relevant users who love your content – simple. You can also make sure you know when your audience is around.
“In Followerwonk, you can analyze your followers (or those of any other user) and see a chart of when they’re most likely to be online. This’ll help you find optimal times to tweet.” Pete argues it may be worth tweeting when there are less people around than when the masses are out tweeting. “Quality content at a reasonable rate” is his summary.
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/when-is-my-tweets-prime-of-life
Content curation the only way forward? by Rand Fishkin
Rand disputes that “the only way to do SEO in the modern era is to be a great content marketer”…..
here are other ways he feels can help without using content:
1) Recommendations – develop a fantastic reputation, fantastic word of mouth and you will get backlinks to your site.
2) Great advertising – creative advertising leads to word of mouth, traffic and links to your site or products.
3) Inherently viral products and services.
4) Community building and engagement.
Rand sums up with : “Remember that the picture of marketing on the web is not just search and it’s not just social and it’s not just content. It’s all of these things….”.
Here at Relevance we like to give our clients a quiver of SEM weapons including great content, community updates, backlinks, mailings, and advertising.
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/content-is-not-the-only-way-whiteboard-friday
Algo Hunters – An Interview with Barry Schwartz
Great article with 2 SEO dons discussing the Google algorithm.
SEO Algorithm Tips I weeded out:
“On the algorithm penalty side, I think over the next year, we will see Google probably target yet another usability factor in their algorithm. We had Panda and the page layout algorithm, we also had page speed. I’d look at an additional usability factor to be targeted with a Google update.
In the ranking algorithm side, I’d think we would see more social (Google+) come into play not just in personalized search but in weighting certain pages – if not in 2014, then for sure by 2015″
Relevance agrees and feels G+ is a vital tool in your SEM campaign.”
Barry Schwartz
“I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with Knowledge Graph. There’s a lot of code and data behind what may look like a toy to some people, and we’re seeing the real beginning of the semantic web. I expect it to have huge organic search implications in the next couple of years.”
Dr. Pete
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/algo-hunters-an-interview-with-barry-schwartz
Great Customer Service
“Think of customer service as a polyamorous relationship; we’re going on a first date with new users, but we’re married to our existing users.”
Kevin Hale
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/how-to-give-great-customer-service
Social Signal for SEO
Jayson DeMeers – my favourite
Must read blog post by Jayson about social search.
He admits that the importance of social search and links from social media are having a direct and indirect impact on organic search engine rankings.
Jayson says:
“Direct impact comes from:
• Number of people that like your brand on Facebook
• Number of Facebook shares
• Number of Twitter followers
• Number of tweets mentioning your brand name or including a link to your website
• Number of people that “have you in their circles” (Google+)
Indirect impact comes from:
• Increased inbound links and citations due to improved online visibility/brand awareness
• Increased positive reviews (in Google Local , Yelp, etc.) due to happier customers
• Decreased bounce rate, higher time on site, and more repeat visitors to your website”
Matt Cutts said at July 2012 SMX Advanced , “So, there’s this perception that, yes, everything will go social, or links are completely obsolete, and I think it’s premature to reach that conclusion. I don’t doubt that in ten years things will be more social, and those will be more powerful signals, but I wouldn’t write the epitaph for links quite yet.”
Jayson advises:
“Onsite elements include:
• Share buttons (like, recommend, tweet, bookmark, etc.)
• Connect buttons (Like a Facebook page, Follow on Twitter, Follow on LinkedIn, etc.)
• A blog
Offsite elements include:
• Facebook page
• Twitter account
• LinkedIn company page
• Pinterest account
• Youtube account
• Guest blog posting
• Other social media platforms”
He summarises the blog saying “Brands that have embraced social media not only enjoy the ranking benefits due to the impact of social signals, but also increased conversion rates, brand loyalty, and word-of-mouth referrals.”
He also considers time on site, reviews from G+, places, Yelp, and Google Authorship.
Spot on!
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/your-guide-to-social-signals-for-seo
Use Social Media for Link Building
Ruth Burr talks about how to create link building partnerships using social media – stop being the creepy cold caller e-mailer.
http://www.seomoz.org/relevance/using-twitter-for-link-relationships-whiteboard-friday
Insights from a 1 million dollar campaign
Larry Kim expects Google Advertising to go crazy as they need to please shareholders.
Expect Ads everywhere.