1. Test Website Accessibility

Before you optimize your content, be sure that search engines are able to locate it. Embedded links in Macromedia Flash content and JavaScript Navigation Systems sometimes cannot be found by search engines. Search for “search engine simulator” on Google and make sure all your website pages are accessible.

You will also want to make sure that your website can be easily navigated. Have a friend look for something on one of your deeper-level pages — say an article or product. Were they able to locate it quickly? Is the location intuitive? If not, now is the time to fix it.

2. Check URLs

Are your website URLs intuitive and easy to understand? If a person looked at them, would he have a sense of what the page was all about? Look at any page on your site besides your home page. Copy the information in the address bar and send it to a friend. Can they get the gist of what your page is about without actually viewing it?

3. Check browser compatibility

If your site doesn’t display correct in one or more web browsers, you’ve got problems. Visitors will turn away in droves. Before starting your SEO work, check to make sure your website renders correctly in all popular browsers, like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome.

4. Research keywords

Do your homework. Take time to conduct comprehensive keyword research to determine terms buyers use when searching for your products and services. Google Adwords Keyword Tool is great for identifying keywords and building related content.

5. Optimize images

Try right-clicking on an image and look at where it says “img alt”. Does this accurately describe the image? Is it even there? The alt tag is what is seen by search engines when they crawl your site. It is also there for visually impaired readers. Making your alt tags relevant and descriptive improves the accessibility of your site and helps with search engines.

6. Meta description relevance

Check your meta description (the part below the title in the search results). Does it accurately describe your website? Does it invite a random user to click on it? Make sure the answer to all these questions is “yes”.

The post Six Tips for Building User Engagement appeared first on AddMe Blog.

What is Google Hot Trends?

Google Trends is an application that shows users the biggest searches per day. Google Hot Trends is similar to this, but it updates every hour. This tool will show you what keywords and stories are being searched the most, and it will show you how much traffic has surged in the last hour for that keyword.

There is also an archive feature that archives previous trends that occurred days or even months in the past. This means that you can keep looking at the trends until you finally find one that is relevant to your niche. You can also sign up to receive updates that will tell you when new information is added to the Hot Trends list.

Using Hot Trends

Using Hot Trends is easy. You go to the page and look at the most popular stories and keywords. Using Hot Trends to benefit your website takes a little more work, but not that much. Just look through the listings until you find something relevant to your niche. For example, if your website is about illnesses, then look for a listing about the latest influenza epidemic.

After finding something that people are looking for, you should write an article on that trend to post on your website. While most of these trends are short-lived, you can easily get a lot of new visitors if you concentrate on responding to the latest trends.

Automatic Updates

The other great thing about Hot Trends is that it updates automatically. For example, Google Insight or the Keywords Tool can show you how many people searched a certain keyword, but you still need to think of a keyword to make the program work. Hot Trends shows the latest trends without any prejudice.

While that might make it a little harder to find something relevant for your audience, it will also ensure that you actually find something that people are interested in reading about. You should assign one employee to watch the trends when they come out so that you can get the best benefit from this service.

Conclusion

Google Hot Trends is one of the best ways to find out about keywords and stories that people are interested in. If you are finding it difficult to bring your readers great stories they care about, or if you aren’t doing so well in terms of search traffic, then Hot Trends will give you and your employees all the inspiration you need. Just check back every hour, and you will find something new and exciting that you can write about.

The post Beat the Keyword Heat with Hot Trends appeared first on AddMe Blog.

1.  Blog Networks: Earlier this year, Google was on a war path against blog networks, deindexing the thousands of sites of all the major networks. According to Matt Cutts, the head of the webspam team at Google, they are developing tools to find and deindex blog networks. Matt Cutts has also stated that there is almost ALWAYS a footprint in any network, and I have to agree. In almost every blog network that I have run across, I have always found a footprint; some common footprints are: two links in every post, zero nofollow links, all posts are approximately the same length, all blogs linking out to the same exact sites, and all blogs hosted on the same IP address. There is also evidence that Google has implemented changes in its algorithm to account for these footprints and devalue any links that fit a certain criteria. There is also evidence that blogroll/sitewide links have been devalued. I can testify for that because just a few weeks ago, I bought a blogroll link from a PR 4 site and soon after doing so, my site went from being ranked 12th to 38th. I quickly asked that the link be removed and soon after it was removed, my site jumped back up to ranking 26th. Coincidence? I doubt it.

2.  Keyword Stuffing: There once was a time when stuffing keywords in the footer and making them the same color as the background so that they are unnoticeable to visitors actually helped improve rankings, but those days are long gone. Google has begun penalizing sites that blatantly stuff keywords (especially after the Penguin update). Keyword density is something that webmasters should monitor every now and then to make sure it is not too high. Keyword stuffing in the content of a webpage is not the only thing that can hurt your site. If the keyword anchor texts of your backlinks are too much of the same or too “keyword-rich”, that is also something that can possibly hurt your site. So be sure to have at least a few generic words like “click here” or “learn more” in the anchor texts of your backlinks.

3.  Profile Links: Profile links were once considered an important part of any link building strategy. These days, they are essentially useless. Contextual links are what Google loves most. Links on pages with little to no content on them have been becoming less and less valuable and this trend is likely to continue.

4.   Link Exchanges: About 5-6 years ago, link exchanges were the most popular form of link building. Instead of blog networks, there were link exchange networks. But in recent algorithm updates, Google has penalized sites with too many link exchanges and devalued reciprocal links. If you really want to do link exchanges, do them with only a few, high quality, relevant sites.

5.   Meta Keyword Tag: The meta keyword tag was once used as a ranking factor in Google’s search rankings but because of too many people abusing and spamming it by putting in as many keywords as possible, Google no longer considers it as a ranking factor. It does consider the meta description tag now, but it has very little importance.

Rob Maynard is a webmaster, writer, and online marketer who has been working in the SEO industry for almost 10 years. He is currently working as a writer for a website hosting reviews site.

The post 5 Obsolete SEO Tactics appeared first on AddMe Blog.

1. Title tags and headings will always be important.

This is because not only are they the first thing that a reader sees, but search engines also like good titles and headings. They lend credibility and validity to any piece of writing, for both readers and search engines. Titles are usually also a deciding factor as to whether they continue reading or not. That’s why the title needs to be engaging. Headings help to space the text out so that it is more readable, for both human beings and web crawlers alike.

The key is to create eye catching titles and headings that will appeal to both readers and search engines. For example, it is best to use a main keyword at the start of title or heading, so that search engines will display it in search results.

2. Fresh content is still king on the Internet.

Online marketing relies heavily upon effective content creation. Interesting topics are necessary to engage both the audience and the search engines. In addition to providing new content, it helps to edit or update existing content. These habits will enamor your content to Google, by making it appear new and improved. Also, the fresher your content happens to be, the more relevant it will be considered.

3. Embrace Social Media.

Social networking is what fuels Internet marketing. One big adjustment that Google has announced is that it will be including social media links in rankings. This will affect traditional SEO efforts so that web content writers will need to consider this in how their work is constructed.

One great way to leverage social media is to publish viral content that is naturally shared across multiple social media channels. For example, guides, lists, how-to articles and other useful content. Each time an article is created, think about writing it so that you would be inclined to share it through social media.

4. Content size does matter.

It is no secret that Google has always responded best to more detailed, longer postings. Rather than break up a piece of writing into several smaller sections, it is better to leave it in a more comprehensive state. Longer posts also have the added bonus of lateral search indexing. This assists Google in classifying content more precisely. In addition, classified content leads to a higher relevancy and authority level, while encouraging more high quality links.

5. Be aware of article marketing changes.

Article marketing will probably always be a popular way of promoting online websites. Writers should keep in mind that the Google Panda Update reduced the value of article marketing to a certain degree. This is why fresh, relevant, well-written content should be the main focus of any Internet marketing campaign.

About The Author:
John Zwissler from AddMe.com – AddMe is a resource for free search engine submission and online marketing tools. Try our free search engine submission and subscribe to our bi monthly newsletter.

The post 5 Top SEO Article Writing Tips appeared first on AddMe Blog.

While some website owners may question as to why they should have their sites optimized for branding keywords, below are some points to consider.

1. Randomly placed branding keywords are no guarantee of targeted traffic. The goal of SEO is to produce more targeted web traffic. In order for that to happen, the branding message needs to actively direct that traffic. This is more easily accomplished when the most essential branding keywords are used deliberately in SEO.

2. Branded keywords provide a way to get web visitors to the most relevant pages in connection with their search. When a user is searching for a particular kind of information, they will appreciate the much better result of landing directly on the page they are looking for. The best keywords provide that capability.

3. Better user experiences equals more chance at conversion. When your site is most obviously a logical destination, the user will have a much better experience when they can arrive directly from the search engine results page to the one they were looking for in the first place.

4. Web visitors are impatient. It is a given that web users often might give up on a web site if it is too much of a hassle to find what they are looking for. That’s SEO 101 and why you want to be at the top of the search engine results. Using branding keywords can eliminate the chance that an extra click may distract or deter a visitor, since they won’t have to deal with that.

5. Branded keyword optimization is critical for e-commerce. Each page on an e-commerce site should be designed for the convenience of the visitor. Again, its SEO 101 that to ignore the fact that sloppy pages will be annoying and abandoned is suicide for e-commerce. Each item product page should be optimized by model and other identifying numbers and brands, so that consumers have no trouble finding what they are searching for.

6. Search engine results pages are more easily dominated with branding keywords. Each time a search is conducted for your brand, as much as possible, the content in the search results should be controlled or owned by you. The company website comes first and then internal pages. Properly optimized pages that include quality links and are promoted well, will produce the best results.

7. Brand keywords will bolster web traffic through external sources. This will include social and local profiles, blogs, articles, press releases, videos and interviews. The result will be much higher search engine rankings.

8. Protect you online reputation. Branding keywords are sometimes easy to highjack with piggyback content. Take action to incorporate keywords into as much of your content as possible. When your pages dominate the search pages, there is less chance that any negative press will surface.

Traditionally, many online companies have heavily relied upon the usual SEO strategies to market their websites. However, as brand authority continues to rise in search engine results, it is well worth the time for all businesses and marketers to leverage branded keywords for the best marketing results.

About The Author: John Zwissler from AddMe.com – AddMe is a resource for free search engine submission and online marketing tools.  Try our free search engine submission and subscribe to our bi monthly newsletter.

The post Why Branded Keywords Matter for SEO appeared first on AddMe Blog.

How to Estimate Organic Keyword Profitability

1. Collect Information on Keyword Search Volume. Gather a list of relevant keywords and place them into the Google Keyword Tool. Up to 100 keywords at a time can be evaluated. This tool has several options that allow users to perform critical tasks. For instance, users can choose specific keywords on the list rather than every variation of terms on the list. This is accomplished by selecting either “exact match” or “phrase match.” Many people prefer to use phrase match because it accounts from long tail variations of seed keywords.

2. Calculate the Keyword Click-Through-Rate (CTR). Once the keyword list is generated, users can forecast monthly click-through-rate based upon search engine ranking. This step is not without its challenges. Often, it is difficult to determine CTR with a high degree of precision. Some experts recommend using data from other company’s Google CTR Study analysis for comparison purposes. Studies will act as a baseline or estimate when data is not available to the user.

3. Calculate Conversion Rates. Real conversion data can be captured in real-time with site analytics. Most people can gain real-time information except in the case of a new site or when evaluating affiliate revenue. Conversion rate averages are used in this instance. These averages can be found from MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report. This report states that most organic conversion rates are between four percent and eight percent.

When real data is unavailable, some experts calculate forecasts with three different conversion point ranges. For a conservative range, one to two percent may be used. For a more robust range, three to four percent is used. For an optimistic range, five to six percent is used.

4. Forecast or Determine Keyword Revenue Potential

Most people want to ultimately know the profitability of every keyword. The computation is usually calculated based upon average value per sale or the lifetime value of the customer. The calculation can also be based on the price per lead if lead generation is the focal point of the profitability study. If this data is not available, the calculation will be similar to forecasting for potential conversions or traffic instead of overall profitability.

Keyword Valuation is Essential to Success

Keyword valuation is essential to the success of any business with a desire to increase profitability through ecommerce. With keyword valuations, businesses can determine which keywords to use in copy and advertisements to get the most return on investment (ROI). Invest in keyword valuation and watch your company’s profit increase.

The post 4 Easy Tips to Keyword Valuation appeared first on AddMe Blog.

There is a weapon that you can use in this battlefield, and it’s commonly known as competitive intelligence (CI). This new weapon is defined as the ethical gathering and analysis of competitor, market and customer information from open sources. It can be the key to leveling the battlefield.

The analysis that you gather from CI is used to make strategic decisions. It can be likened to a study that provides inside information about your competitors and your clientele. It is often the difference between a competition and a victory.

Acquiring Knowledge

The survival of your organization may depend on the acquired knowledge about both your prospects and your competitors. In recent years, the transparency of public sector procurement has increased. Use this information to understand your clients. Companies that can demonstrate a true understanding of a client’s needs will be the victors. Embedding competitive intelligence as part of your core management process is essential for your company’s survival and growth.

Compiling Data

You can make CI part of your business operations by creating profiles of both your target clients and your key competitors. You can begin by compiling data from your competitors. You can find most of the data from their websites. You should also identify your own strengths and weaknesses to improve your ability to compete.

Best Practices for Management:

• Qualifying Your Tenders
  Tendering can be expensive, and you should compete where it counts. Don’t be afraid of losing. You can learn as much from losing as you can from winning.
• Systemic Intelligence Gathering
  Take the time to know your competitors, your partners and yourself.
• Procurement History
  Identify incumbent suppliers, buying habits, previous purchases and decision makers.
• Maintain Your Data
  It would be wise to keep your data in a safe place. Maintaining and keeping your data safe will protect it from getting into the wrong hands.

Keep in mind that CI is about understanding the bigger picture and having the correct perception of the marketplace. You are trying to quantify or qualify competitive threats and business opportunities in a precise way. Seize your opportunities, and you will see them multiply.

The post Learn From Your Competitors by Using Competitive Intelligence appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Why Split Tests Fail:

Invalid Testing:

A very common error is to run an invalid test. This boils down to ending the experiment before statistically significant results have been obtained. When the initial results are positive, a enthusiastic webmaster might abandon the testing process. This can produce an invalid conclusion and, ultimately, a failed test.

A well-researched test is essential if you want valid results. The more you put into your test design, the more informative your results will be. Test design should include:

• Clickstream analytics
• Click Tale Aesthetics
• User testing
• Heuristic usability
• Previous test results
• Editorial staff input

Not Testing Different Variations:

Making small changes to the variation page and then running s split test will often show the original page as outperforming the variation. Feel free to make small changes in a split test, but don’t ignore larger changes that could increase conversion just because you’re afraid of failing the test!Because split testing is an A/B test, it won’t tell you which aspects of the variation page are responsible for increased page performance. Multivariate testing is a better way to identify small changes that have a positive effect. Testing the entire page will reveal information you can use to design a high-performance web page.

Profiting From Failure

A failed A/B test doesn’t mean there’s nothing of value in the results. Studying the analytics can yield critical information. Examine how visitors navigated your site with behavior analytics. Use clickstream analytics to isolate any positive aspects of the failed variation. You might learn that although your variation landing page did not increase sales, it did generate more traffic.

Test … And Test Again

Although it’s satisfying to perform an A/B test that delivers results you want, many webmasters have created remarkable success based on failure. Think of A/B testing as way to root out what’s not working. It’s natural to want good results, but some of the most notable achievements in history were built on a series of failures. What you learn from a failed test could ultimately lead to a significant accomplishment.

The post Turning The Failed A/B Test Into an Ultimate Success appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Optimize Your Ad Groups

On the face of things, the keywords that are included in an ad group may seem very relevant to one another. Upon further analysis, however, this often turns out not to be the case after all. If the keywords in question aren’t quite related enough, the effectiveness of your landing pages will be diminished. Remedying this is fairly simple. You need to obtain the average quality score of each group. Next, you need to get the standard deviation of all of each group’s keyword quality scores. If the standard deviation is high, the keywords that point to one landing page are too disparate and should be split off in some way.

Of course, when you suggest splitting these keywords off, you’re likely to experience resistance. That’s where your data will come in handy. Have your numbers at the ready to prove your point. You’re more likely to get what you want by doing that.

Automated A/B Testing

The importance of A/B testing cannot be emphasized enough. Comparing your landing pages on a side-by-side basis is critical. A/B testing can be used to propel conversion rates and revenues per click. In turn, clicks can be split between several landing pages, reports on the ensuing results can be made and traffic distribution can be automatically optimized.

The goal here is to quickly detect statistically important results from various landing page changes and tweaks and to act upon them quickly. This kind of insight is absolutely invaluable, and it will make or break your search engine marketing efforts.

On the off-chance that you have direct control over landing page content, your work will be a little easier. You’ll be juggling all three balls, so to speak, but you’ll still need to prioritize the performance of your landing pages in order to achieve ongoing success.

The post How Effective is Your Landing Page? appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Why do I use the term “SEO-manipulated?” The answer is because Google simply doesn’t like that awkward-sounding, keyword-laden copy anymore. Sure, ten years ago during the infancy of internet marketing, you could repeat a certain keyword on your page many times and then stick it in the page’s title, and voila! you were suddenly at the top of the search engine rankings!

But, that kind of copy doesn’t work anymore.

Why Doesn’t Keyword-Stuffed Copy Work Anymore?

The truth is that you don’t even have to perform tests to know this is true, although you can if you would really like. A simple analysis of various statements Google has made will show you exactly why this is true. Take a look at a few of the guidelines I’ve located below to help demonstrate this point:

1. “Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.” If this doesn’t make it clear that spammy, keyword-filled copy would be pushed lower in the rankings, I don’t know what does. You can find the statement in this article.
2. If you need direct and explicit confirmation this is true, take a look at this directive: “Filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking.” You can find that phrasing on this page. If you had any questions regarding keyword-stuffed copy, they should be answered now.
3. “We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites.” Matt Cutts made this statement at the Google Webmaster Central Blog, and you can find the original article here. Google doesn’t seem to be at the point where it ranks sites that don’t have any SEO well, but based on these statements, and the Penguin, Fresh, and Panda updates in the past 18 months, it is clear this is where the company is heading.

What’s the Future of Keyword Density?

As you can see in point number three, Google’s focus is on ranking valuable content well. In an ideal world, this would probably mean the targeted keyword is used once or twice, and a number of semantically related terms help Google understand how to rank the article. So, to future-proof yourself, you would be best off writing valuable content, and if you really need the numbers, a .5% keyword density maximum.

If you would like a quick keyword density check of your web page to make sure you don’t stuff too many in, check out this tool.

About the Author:
Dan Stelter: Dans SEO Copy Writing

The post Keyword Density: Like All Areas of Life, Moderation Works Best appeared first on AddMe Blog.