Ensure that each element of your content marketing strategy works together to avoid the 10 plagues of content marketing. This Passover inspired post provides an actionable content marketing checklist of the 10 content marketing plagues and how make your content succeed.
The post The 10 Content Marketing Plagues: How To Get On Track To Succeed appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Are you a one person business or department trying to keep your content marketing going? Use solopreneur content curation to streamline your content creation process. You have the choice of 3 key curation formats to supply your audience with useful information. Examples included.
The post The Definitive Solopreneur Content Curation Guide appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Growth and comfort rarely coexist. Here, at cognitiveSEO, we know this better than anyone. We knew it was high time we rolled up our sleeves and worked our fingers to the bone to give our users the best possible experience. So here we stand today, proud to present you what we’ve been working on for the past few months: simply put, a better cognitiveSEO app.
Better. Faster. Stronger. This is how the cognitiveSEO app feels like now. We spent the last couple of months improving our toolset from a design & functionality point of view, so all our users could now enjoy a tool that loads up to five times faster, has a cleaner interface, and a way better usability.
We have to be honest and admit that in the past users complained about slow loading times and a not-so-great user-experience.
With everything else we’re currently working on (and trust us, there’s a lot), we could have just let this go and said “It can wait”.
But “good enough” is just not good enough for us and we want our users to have both the best service and the best experience when using our service.
We wanted to address these concerns for a long time now, but everything happens at the right time. And given that today’s the right time, we are glad and proud to share with you what the cognitiveSEO team members have been breaking their backs with in the last months.
In a world that is constantly rushing and with a need for near-instant gratification, there is no need to outline the importance of speed. Faster thinking, faster internet speed, faster vehicles, faster apps – everyone and everything is moving faster. Therefore, we had no other choice than comply and offer our users an SEO toolset that would fit their speed needs.
You’ll be doing more work in less time.
No more slow-loading times, regardless how big the data volume is, and no more dead times until website comparative analysis loads. The cognitiveSEO app is now faster than it ever was, while also remaining cutting edge and fully comprehensive.
We always focus on having a deep understanding of our users – what they need, what they value, their abilities, and also their limitations when it comes to using our tool.
And while we were aware that the design is highly important, we didn’t want to leave some equally important attributes behind such as utility, usability, and efficiency.
We all need people to give us feedback. That’s how we improve. And we were lucky enough to have a lot of users sharing their experience with us regarding the tool, their needs, requirements, and interests. We were all ears, and we’ve made the necessary changes to make sure our users have a better experience with the tool, a better feel, and a more efficient use of it.
You can now enjoy a way easier selection and creation of campaigns. You can switch between campaigns fast and easy, regardless if you’re checking link profiles or keywords’ rankings.
The filtering capabilities are now improved; not only they look and feel better, but they are also more advanced. You can now better visualize the available filters, you can add several filters at once, and you can also save all your favorite ones with just one click. These are only some of the improvements we’ve made. However, in order to actually enjoy the improvements we’ve made to better user experience, we highly recommend you to try it out and convince yourself.
Just like in so many movie montages, we’ve gone for a style change that makes us feel better about ourselves.
The new design looks better, moves faster and is more in line with the way we see ourselves now.
Being in the SEO world, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times before: Content is king. While this remains true, we need to outline the fact that content is king, but the presentation is also important because this is what makes you look at the content in the first place. The same is true both in face-to-face interactions and when it comes to digital interactions.
Marketers, designers, and developers worked together in finding the best re-design version, one that would not snip anything off the quality, but would rather offer a better feeling, flow, and ease of tool use.
If someone has something important to say but fails at being attractive, we tend to lose focus. It’s not something we do intentionally, but we do it nonetheless. Were we to choose, most of us would probably go for a rather shallow but well put together motivational speech, than an informative but dry lecture. People might eventually listen if you have something worth to say, but it’s better to make it easier for them.
This is what we tried to do with our interface: create something more attractive, cleaner, and easier to understand and work with.
But too much talk ruins it, so you would better go, check out the tool improvements, and experience the changes on your own. It will definitely sweep you off your feet!
The post A Better cognitiveSEO Is Now Live. Huge Speed & Design Improvements appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.
We all know that quality links to our website are beneficial for rankings. But link-building is hard and time consuming and reckless link-building is sort of ‘illegal’ in terms of Google Guidelines. Your only ‘legal’ option is to create great content and distribute it properly in order to earn natural links.
The problem is that not all pages are easily linked to. It’s just not the case for category pages, or landing pages in strange niches, such as leech breeding. So, instead, you create other pages, with the specific target of getting links to them. If your website has no technical issues and the content is very good, some quality, natural links will surely get these pages rank well.
However, your ultimate target aren’t those pages, but your category and landing pages. Those are the pages you really want to get ranking. So… Does building links to one page help other pages rank well on Google?
We’re going to find out in this article. You’ll see some examples and some answers from Google itself. But, before that, I want to tell you why I decided to write this article.
There are actually two triggers that made us consider this subject:
The first one is a comment left by one of our readers on Facebook, on a post of a previous cognitiveSEO blog article. The article was about how to write quality content and build links in any niche, regardless of how uninteresting it is.
Here’s the user’s comment:
I wanted to give him a quick answer, so I started looking for it throughout our blog, then on the web and this got me to the second reason I decided to write this article. I couldn’t quite find anything about this. Most of the articles were around Domain Authority, but nobody specifically said anything about links to one page helping other pages on your website rank.
I don’t understand where his claim comes from. As you can see from my response, I’m not very fond on disagreeing with something without an argument, source or better alternative.
I was suggesting that method in the possibility that links to your commercial pages are not very easy to get. Instead of building links through black hat methods, you could write on a blog and properly promote the articles through social media and other marketing channels in order to acquire natural links. These articles will then pass the gathered link equity, through the domain, to the pages you actually want to rank. This is a white hat, cheaper alternative to automated link-building tools and paid guest posting or advertorials.
From what I know (and we probably all do), links, even if they are nofollow links, still help with rankings. We love links from other websites to our websites. It’s also great if the websites linking to us have backlinks of their own. The more, the better. It could be that they’ll have less of an impact the more Google’s algorithms evolve, but it’s not the case yet. So far, acquiring links has been proven countless times to help a website rank higher.
However, apparently, people think that links will only help the rankings of a page they actually point to.
So, will links to the root domain or other pages on the website help a particular page rank better in Google, or is our commenter right and Domain Performance/Authority is a deprecated metric? Let’s find out!
The short answer is yes. But let’s put it like this:
If you were to start a new website, what would you prefer:
I’m pretty sure you’d go for the second option. Why? Well, long story short, because of its authority. Because that domain is already seen well in Google’s eyes. Of course, it’s not that easy, as most used domains that are for sale are usually there for a reason: they probably have a ton of unnatural links and could even be penalized.
However, if you ever find an expired domain for sale, with a clean links profile, I’m sure you’ll go for it.
Checking the Wikipedia page for Domain Authority brings us this:
Domain authority can be described through four dimensions:
So there are other metrics involved, such as domain age and content quality. Domain age is a very relevant factor. We all know that new domains don’t do very well in the searches, regardless of the content they put up.
For example, even on my personal blog in Romania, SEOproject.ro, it took me around 5 months until I started seeing any results in the search engines, although I definitely wrote the best, most comprehensive content out there. I’ve only started writing in August, so before that, the blog had virtually 0 visits.
Screenshot from SEOproject.ro’s Analytics account
Some of the sites I’ve outranked have more age than my website and even more links. Here’s a domain age graph where you can clearly see who’s the baby.
Screenshot from Websiteseochecker’s Domain Age Tool
And they have a lot more links to their root domains:
Screeshot from CognitiveSEO ‘s Site Explorer
Also, here’s proof of me outranking them with high quality content:
However, I do have the most links that point to a single page, but the difference in content length and quality here is too significant for one blog comment to matter that much.
But that’s the case for only a small amount of articles. On most occasions, other websites with more links and age are ranking their pages above mine, even if their content is not quite the best. The reason for that, is most probably due to the authority they’ve acquired over the time, through consistent content creation, promotion and link acquisition. Here’s an example:
As you can see above, I’m ranked 6th in the results for this query. I did a check with Cognitive SEO’s Site Explorer on each separate page, and only one has 1 link, from an irrelevant foreign website. However, when I check the links pointing to the whole domains, we can see something else:
Screenshots from CognitiveSEO’s Site Explorer
Although it’s not in perfect order, you can clearly see the correlation. The website with the most referring domains doesn’t even answer the question properly. Still, my page is ranking pretty high for it’s competition and that is due to the quality of the content.
These websites don’t have links to the specific pages that are outranking mine. They have links all over the place, to different pages.
But wait, I have more proof.
One quick note or disclaimer before I introduce these examples:
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t build links to a specific page. Obviously, it’s in that page’s best interest to acquire links of its own. This will help it rank better for its target keywords and will also help the entire domain grow in authority.
Cyrus Shepard himself stated this in one of Moz’s case studies regarding links’ influence on rankings:
| “The study did find numerous examples where individual pages ranked just fine without specific external links, as long as the website itself had external links pointing at it.” | |
 |
Cyrus Shepard |
| Ex Mozzer, current CEO of Fazilion Media\ / @cyrusshepard | |
I’ve just used the top 3 results in my examples, but the lower you go in the search results, the lower the number of total links pointing to the domains will be. What I’m trying to prove through these examples is that although some pages have links pointing specifically to them, other pages outrank them because the total number of links pointing to their root domain is significantly higher.
Here is an example that fits perfectly:
It’s yet another piece of proof that domain authority isn’t only about links. Domains with the .gov and .edu extensions aren’t as easy to get, as you need official paperwork to prove ownership of an educational or governmental institution. Google sees these as very authoritative domains, and tends to rank them pretty high.
First, let’s analyze the individual pages and look for their backlinks:
Screenshot from cognitiveSEO’s Site Explorer, analyzing link data.
You can clearly see that HelpGuide’s page, although it has over 200 links from 67 different domains, is outranked by WikiHow’s page, with only 21 links from 12 different domains.
Now let’s analyze the domains as a whole and see what we get:
It seems like WikiHow has the highest amount of root domain links. WikiHow also has more than the .gov site. However, these searches were done with the settings tweaked to US – English, in Chrome’s Icognito mode. Doing a couple of searches for WikiHow and browsing their website a little before searching the keyword “how to overcome addiction” places WikiHow on the first position, which also proves that Google’s search is very personalized.
So could this be proof of other links to the root domain helping this specific page rank better? Maybe. But let’s check out another example:
Here’s the individual pages analysis:
Again, the page with the highest amount of links ranks the lowest. Although FamilyHandyMan.com has more links to one specific page, it stands no chance against the authorities ahead of it:
With over 4 times the amount of links from unique domains pointing to their root domain, these websites easily outrank the competition, even without as many links to the specific pages they’re trying to rank.
One final example will set things straight:
I’ve worked within this niche around 3-4 years ago, so I know very well that PetGearLab and GroomAndStyle weren’t around at that time. I also know that ConsumerReports wasn’t targeting this niche, but I knew that they will at some point.
This example is probably the clearest:
Of course, there are many cases out there in which websites with high authority and high number of root domain backlinks are outranked by non-authoritative websites with small amounts of links pointing to them. But we also have to take content quality into account.
Through these examples I just wanted to show that a correlation between referring domains and high rankings still exists, even if links to the page that’s ranking are missing.
But why need proof, when you have answers from Google itself?
Asking a couple of experts here and there would have helped as well, but I decided to go directly to the source first : ask Google. Below you can see the conversation with John Mueller (Head of Spam @ Google) on this topic:
Maybe. But if B is totally irrelevant, it’s going to look a bit weird on your site & users aren’t going to convert.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 12, 2018
Someone needs to program a cringe-reaction when Googlebot runs into “Top N X’s” and “N things you didn’t know about X”, but otherwise that seems like something worth trying out.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 12, 2018
Now Google has never been very direct and definitive with their answers, but let me create a summary of the contents above:
|
Q: Can links to one page influence the rankings of another page on my website? A: Maybe. It seems like something worth trying out. |
|
 |
John Mueller |
| Head of Spam at Google / @JohnMu | |
So where’s that ‘maybe’ coming from? Well, there are other factors involved. For example, content quality or the quality of the backlinks. John can’t account for that, so he can’t simply say ‘Yes!’. If that was the case, John could be misleading newbies into thinking that chaotic link building might help them rank.
From what John’s saying, it appears that links are still useful and that links to one page CAN influence another page’s rankings. So, in case you can’t really get links to some pages you desire to rank with, links to other pages that can easily go viral and act as ‘link magnets’ can be very helpful.
If getting natural links to a commercial page that you want ranking isn’t easy, creating other relevant pages that act as link magnets can be helpful.
Also, this is definitely a first:
My reaction as an SEO when the Head of Spam @ Google likes my tweet.
However, there’s a catch to it. If you don’t do this right, links to one page will never help another page rank well.
No one can promise you that this will get you top rankings, but if nothing else worked, it’s definitely something worth trying.
First, you should have a blog set up, so you can create content that people will actually want to link to. Then, in general, there are 3 key points that you should follow:
Without relevant, qualitative content, you won’t be ranking anywhere. This is actually up to the users. Google is just constantly testing to see if users are satisfied with the content. If they are, then Google will rank you higher. If they’re not, you will drop. It’s as simple as that.
Writing good content is very broad, but you can start by reading this article about how to write interesting content in any niche . You can also check out the SEO friendly blog post checklist.
You’ll also need quality content to be able to get natural links. Boring content never gets viral.
As long as your backlink profile is complete trash, not only will you not get you pages anywhere, but you might also lose your chance of ever seeing high rankings if you get penalized.
Although people are saying that with the Penguin 4.0 bad links will just get ignored instead of resulting in penalties, many cognitiveSEO users that have reported massive organic traffic loss and ranking drops had one thing in common: a lot of unnatural links. I don’t know about you, but it sounds like a penalty to me.
Screenshot from the CognitiveSEO Tool showing a website’s highly unnatural link profile
Unnatural links are usually the result of a mix between manual link building patterns, spam, thin content and many other factors. These links can damage your rankings! The idea is to get natural links to different URLs around your domain, through proper and consistent content creation and distribution. That’s why having a blog on any website is such a good idea. This is especially the case for eCommerce websites, because the truth is they’ll hardly get any links if they stick only to category and product pages.
This is the key part, so make sure you don’t miss it!
Remember when I said that pages can rank without links? I kind of lied. Pages still need links, but just not backlinks. They need internal links and the internal links structure should be very well set up in order to maximize results.
You see… external links and internal links are not very different. They’re still links. They still pass equity. If you link to your own page, you’re still passing on a vote, you’re recommending it.
Many authorities in the SEO field, such as Neil Patel, Search Engine Watch, etc. have stated that Internal Links help spread the authority throughout the website. A simple internal linking structure review can usually lead to higher rankings and increase in organic traffic.
Even if you don’t have internal links, every article/page still links to the homepage, which eventually links to every other page on your website. So getting links to any page on your site will pass some equity to all the pages on your website, unless you specifically tell them not to.
External links are more valuable and probably pass more equity. Internal links are kind of like scratching your own back. But it’s the kind of back scratching that sends some of the equity from one page to another. And that helps it go up in Google.
Whenever you publish something new that has the ability to go viral and get some backlinks, make sure you also link from it to other relevant pages you want to rank with. This also works vice-versa. When you post something new, go edit some old articles and link to the fresh content, whenever relevant. This will strengthen the ability of individual pages to rank and will also boost the crawlability and indexability of your website as a whole.
Also, use proper anchor texts when inter-linking. It’s good if you use keywords in it, but don’t overdo it. The main purpose of inter-linking is to keep the user engaged with the website and to provide relevant information for further documentation. Just try to keep it natural and useful.
Acquiring quality contextual links to one page can help another page rank higher, if you take into account some important factors, such as content quality and internal linking. If you’re having issues getting natural links to one page, make sure to improve its content and link to it from other relevant internal pages.
It’s even better if the internal pages linking to it had the opportunity to get some love from other websites. The equity will pass through your internal links and your website will be basically telling Google “This page is very important for me”.
The truth is that without any links at all pointing to your domain, it will be very hard for your website to rank its pages in the top 10 results. Proper distribution is mandatory for a domain’s growth over time. Make sure you always promote your content after you publish it. Take advantage of every marketing strategy you can think of, from social media to cold e-mail outreach. You can even make a distribution plan before you even write it.
I’m curious: what are your experiences with this? Do you have pages with low amounts of backlinks that rank well due to your domain’s authority? If yes, let us know about your experience in the comments section below.
The post Does Building Links to One Page Help Other Pages Rank Better in Google? appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.
Thanksgiving Hawaiian Imu - Vlog 3 - https://youtu.be/0Zlqa7iLhsQ
Whale Watch W/ Hawaiian Ocean Sports - https://youtu.be/mldshuW82fo
Heidi Cohen Interviews CoSchedule's Garrett Moon on his new book, 10x Marketing Formula.
Moon's book is about finding the strategic shortcuts to get you to results fast. It s about short-circuiting the path to jaw-dropping growth. You have to find your own way and The 10x Marketing Formula is that path.
The post 10x Marketing Formula – Book Interview appeared first on Heidi Cohen.
Can a Honolulu advertiser really help a small business? Advertising has been the number one method to grow a business for decades. Online and offline advertising techniques can be an efficient way to attract new clients and spread awareness of your brand through a simple ad. But do you know what it takes to build … Continue reading “How Does a Honolulu Advertiser Help Your Business”
How Does a Honolulu Advertiser Help Your Business Read more on: Nick Ponte Marketing
If you want to raise true brand awareness and drive massive organic traffic to your website, then you’re in need of some really effective off-page SEO practices. Big time. There’s little clear-cut and effective content across the Internet on what exactly digital marketers need to focus most of their resources, knowledge, and time on to drive organic traffic to their site from an off-site SEO point of view. That’s where the idea of writing a complete off-page SEO techniques checklist came from. Hope it’ll lend you a helping hand in your digital marketing endeavors.
Most user searches are made because of two reasons: to find information (informational query), or to find information and buy (commercial query). You need both types of users – the ones who seek information, and the ones who want to buy – because either case is a win-win situation: you’ll either convert them into customers, or you’ll win yourself some long-term subscribers.
It’s time you knew the off-site SEO tactics by their name, hence we crafted and put together a complete checklist of everything you should aim at in your SEO endeavors:
Before we could even talk about off-page SEO, we should revise our knowledge on what SEO is in the first place. Although this might sound redundant (after all, this is how you landed on our blog, already knowing what SEO is and its very workings), we shall draw a quick picture of what SEO means today. Search engine optimization (SEO) stands for the entire cumulus of search marketing efforts meant to make websites and online presence stand out both in search engines’ and users’ eyes. SEO should make your brand shine in a sea of other brands, all fighting to get among the first position in SERPs. Furthermore, it seeks to satisfy users’ thirst for fresh, high-quality, relevant, and useful information.
| You can’t just ‘SEO’ your website and be done. It’s a forever moving goal post. | |
 |
Stoney degeyter |
| Digital Marketer @StoneyD / polepositionmarketing.com | |
SEO is an entirely different and exclusive language used by marketers and webmasters to communicate with the search engines. It’s a language bridge between humans and robots if you will. SEO rhymes with friendliness, credibility, authenticity, quality, transparency, fairness, optimization, variety and more. Also, SEO is divided into two main categories: on-page and off-page SEO. What Google asks, SEO strives to deliver.
What’s more, search engines, in general, take into account many factors when ranking a website: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and other important Google-backed factors.
Source: copyblogger.com
On-page SEO techniques can refer to loads of things and practices, and it includes optimized titles and snippets, search-friendly URL structures, friendly navigation – breadcrumbs, user sitemaps -, internal links, text formatting – h1, h2, bold, etc -, user-friendly 404 pages, accelerated pages in terms of loading, mobile-optimized pages, high-quality fresh content, image optimization – image size, proper image names, ALT tag -, external links to relevant sites (not broken) etc.
Off-page SEO refers to optimization activities you can do outside the boundaries of your website. Anything taking place outside of your website and contributing to your ranking is considered off-site SEO: social media marketing, influencer marketing, mentions (direct or indirect), guest blogging (sometimes black-hat), so on, so forth.
Also called off-site SEO, this type of search engine optimization gives search engines a glimpse as to how people and digital entities across the Globe and Internet read your website’s overall features. Off-page SEO rhymes with words like link building or promotion activities, yet the whole thing isn’t just about links, but about a whole lot more. We’ll expand on it a bit later on.
By deploying better off-page SEO techniques means you are trying to prove to your readers and search engines that your site is trustworthy, authentic, relevant, and could very well be popular in your industry. The benefits triggered by good off-page SEO tactics are multiple, but let’s name a few: increase in rankings, increase in PageRank, more visits, more social media mentions, and more visibility.
On-page is active doing, while off-page is somehow passive, as it comes AFTER you’ve worked hard to deliver quality and uniqueness. In terms of outcome, what happens off-page is more important and valuable than what’s on-page. Having a truly rich fresh content and a user-friendly website but no following, likes, share, mentions, or links across the web, is nonsense and futile.
However, the on-page SEO greatly influences the future of the off-page SEO. That’s why the end result has to be considered before starting an activity, not after you’ve already done it. Start with on-page first, and then jump to off-page SEO.
Search engines might change the way their algorithms work, or ranking factors might shift to new ones or follow a new order, but off-site SEO will still matter. Because businesses need thumbs up from readers, as well as linking fellows. The user perception of your own site worthiness and quality is of paramount importance to you. The key to winning them is to build the best product out there, not just another one on the market, and consequently, the off-page SEO would naturally do the work – people would talk about you because they are already converted or drawn to you.
Without further ado, let’s get to the ultimate off-page SEO techniques checklist and learn some lessons for future marketing strategies.
Build and chase quality links. That’s the first and most important thing to remember about links. According to our SEO terms glossary, “NoFollow is an attribute webmasters can use when linking to a website that tells search engines to essentially ignore the link. Social networks are notorious for using NoFollow links when linking to external websites. Links without the NoFollow attribute are referred to as DoFollow”. If you’re wondering actually what impact do NoFollow links have on your website, here are some actionable data and tips, all backed up by case studies and Google’s position in this matter.
Link building is the most popular marketing technique deployed by professionals all over the world. It’s the most desired outcome of all – ok, to some extent. It is so important that, even though Google suggests that content is the #1 ranking factor, it’s often preferred by the masses over the principle of crafting and providing quality fresh content. Yet content is still contributing a lot to your linking strategy.
| To attract links naturally, you’ll need extraordinary content—truly the best of the best—and a heck of a good promotion plan to make that content visible to the right people. | |
 |
Jason Demers |
| Forbes and HuffPost Writer @jaysondemers / audiencebloom.com | |
Links are translated as votes or applause to your website, an overall appreciation of your brand. The same link building effort contributed to the rise of what’s known today as black hat SEO. Sometimes, people are so desperate to gather links that they start playing with fire and perform the following: forum signatures, enroll your website in content directories, link exchange schemes, link networks, blog directories, comment link (a.k.a. comment signature), article directories, and so on.
There are things that make a referring domain, hence a link, valuable (or not), and this are: popularity, topic match between the two domains tied by a link (is the link relevant?), anchor text, link freshness, website trustworthiness, domain authority (DA) and/or page authority (PA), and no. of links used by the “sender” page. Hence, pay attention to whom you’re linking to and how you’re doing it.
Three main types of links populate the web:
The wisest move would be to practice natural link building. The best way to do this is to make your content worthy of links, and links will come naturally. Guest blogging is also a good idea but be careful not to overlink your website and make your contribution more spammy than useful. Also, build your links at a normal, traditional pace, if you will, which is gradually, or else Google will think you’re doing some black-hat magic.
Link building should be about quality, not quantity. Many digital marketers or businesses tend to forget that. Go for the high-quality links. But don’t let this stop you from linking to and getting links from smaller or younger brands and professionals, as long as the domains are good and are related to your niche. They have to meet the further requirements: quality, proper text and keywords, inbound numbers, and others I’ve already mentioned before. In the end, you should have the best of both worlds. And you should target it, even when you think your business is in a boring niche and there’s not much you can do.
The best links are those who pass the most link juice. That’s what your brand needs, and it doesn’t even have to be thirsty. Also, page authority (and general domain trust) is a very clear indicator of a site’s status and overall SEO tactics. And that is because Google is not necessarily and solely interested in links, but in their impact on the online environment and on your website as well.
Huge domains such as Wikipedia do wonders for your brand when gaining an inbound link from them. Today’s lesson: try getting links in and from huge link aggregators like Wikipedia – this is definitely a white hat SEO move. On that same note, inbound links from non-profit (.org) and education (.edu), or official (.gov) sites are especially powerful. These are huge domains that provide extremely high-quality links and also pass some sexy link juice and authority to your page. To check your inbound links, you should try a link analysis tool like Site Explorer and see what, from where, and what type of links you have from “abroad”. Analyze your link profile and see what pages provide the most link juice.
Familiarize yourself with broken link building. Revive those pages or create a smashing 404 page with links to other internal pages. Also, whenever analyzing your link profile, check your website for harmful links, like adult sites referring to you or malware domains sending a link to your website. You can check this by using the aforementioned tool – Site Explorer. Also, check the anchor texts. Many times they happen to not be very relevant to your page topic and can easily mislead Google in “forming an opinion” about your content. Not until recently, I myself realized that anchor texts truly matter and they’re a clear indicator of the relation between your page and the linked one. Hence, I started to pay more attention to the words I add the outbound link on.
Neil Patel teaches us what to do when we spot a broken link:
| If you find a broken link on a website, you can contact the owner. Since you did him/her a small favor of pointing out a broken link, they might do you the favor of including a link to your website. You can even offer a replacement link when appropriate. | |
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Neil patel |
| Entrepreneur & Forbes Columnist @neilpatel / neilpatel.com | |
Never underestimate the magic and power of competitor backlink research. See where your competitors get links from and target the same sources too. This is easy to find when you have any SEO tool at hand, one that does backlink analysis. If you want to master this art o white hat espionage, then you could read this blog post providing a complete framework to analyze your competition, learn their best-kept secrets, and take action like a pro.
Last but not least, it is extremely important that not just standard links should be pursued and taken into acknowledged, but the linkless ones as well, also known as (brand) mentions. For example, only 9% of tweets mentioning companies start with @. Which basically means that 91% of people are talking about you, not to you (attaching a link to their reference). And this is a pretty strong and sound reason to start using a brand mention monitoring tool. You wouldn’t want to miss anything tasty or, well, sour in regard to your brand.
Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, made it clear that links are one of the most important Google ranking factors. Hence, you should make sure you know your mentions (as they also count as links) and, if possible, turn them into backlinks (by contacting the webmaster or content editor).
Social signals might matter to Google when ranking a page. You need to win your audience in order to make Google (or any other search engine) like you and rank you high. Especially when mentions of your brand can count as links, as we previously mentioned.
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram are the buzzwords of the day. They’ve never been so successful and strong in their entire existence. They surely know how to engage people, provide them with the means to be inspired and cheered up, serve them the friends they need (although, most of the times, available only in the virtual world), serve them the share and likes they so much crave for. However, brands and online marketers seized the moment and saw in these social platforms the best playground for brand advocacy and promo.
Shares and likes are the social media magic tricks. They make your business grow and spread like wildfire. Whenever sharing relevant, fresh, and engaging content with your community of users, you win new subscribers, fans, or leads.
| Content is fire. Social media is gasoline. | |
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jay baer |
| Keynote speaker @jaybaer / JayBaer.com | |
There are three things we’d recommend you consider when activating on social media:
It’s better to have fewer subscribers that visit your site on a regular basis, than a multitude of one-time visitors. This is why all more or less reputable blogs and brands provide an RSS subscription box on their walls. RSS is short for Rich Site Summary. And I think that says it all. RSS boxes/stream RSS/channel RSS, or better known as subscription boxes, make page information available in XML format. People are drawn to the trigger-word “subscribe” and leave their email address to receive information without having to proactively search it on the web.
By using this type of contact form, you not only enrich your contact and subscriber agenda but also have an intrigued recipient whom you can send and communicate your company updates, news, blog post etc. You can opt for this Google Feedburner.
Many times, users are happy to benefit from continuous rich info, data, and news without having to manually look them up, and rather satisfied when receiving them by email in the comfort of their home or work offices. And since you might be also looking for some high-quality marketing newsletters to subscribe to, we crafted one already, so you won’t have to mind it.
There are minds who argue that it’s a bit delicate to recommend as it can easily turn into a black hat practice. Blog commenting is an excellent off-site SEO activity that drives organic traffic to your website and SERP ranking.
There are loads of article on the web on how to correctly do blog commenting and everything you need to know is one click away. But the general tone is that you should definitely do it “white-hatly”, and leave any miscellaneous tactics aside.
Give your insight on topics, and attract attention to you, but don’t exercise comment signature. Just mention your brand inside the body of relevant and useful tips, and make its appearance relevant there.
Similar to blog commenting, you should define your reasons for contributing in such a way from the very beginning. Most guest blogs come to advertise their business or product and can sometimes turn into some spammy and annoying reading. Be fair, and make giving actionable, fresh, and relevant info your first concern. Not the links to your website.
By writing guest posts from time to time, not only help you build quality backlinks (duh!) and trigger more organic traffic to your website, but also something else. Yes, you display a professional conduct by writing not only on your personal blog but contributing to others too. There are brands who like to flirt with knowledge coming from other professionals in the field, although that happens quite seldom. And that’s one of those times when you have to choose your men wisely.
Forums are a great place to promote your website and that’s obviously part of off-page SEO techniques. Quora, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, eHow are the most important hubs from where one can gain a lot of actionable info and authentic answers to their questions. Forums are a great playground to get to meet your peers and have a chat with them on topics of interest to you.
Similar to blog commenting or guest blogging, it’s good to mention your brand, but avoid to do it bluntly. First provide some actionable info on the specific topic and then, if relevant, fit your brand between the lines. These Q&A platforms are true gold mines but they have to be won first, by using the right words, tone, and style when posting a contribution. Make it relevant and transparent. Especially when these mediums can bring you a lot of organic traffic to your website, and if lucky, conversions.
It’s natural that off-site SEO includes trust as well. After all, that’s how you get your social media or customer votes. Transparency is one of the must-haves in helping trust be build. Post useful content and don’t try to deceive your readers with catchy titles and zero quality content. That’s definitely not how you build organic traffic!
| Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first. | |
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Wendy Piersall |
| Blogger and author @emom / wendypiersall.com | |
Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) are two important indicators of how search engines see your website. It’s like having your whole life in front of your eyes. You should check your PA and DA, and also your inbound links’ ones with a site explorer tool.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is that setup that makes your website’s relationship with the user be safe. This type of link is making sure that the data passed between the web server and the browsers stay private and unharmed. Users trust a site more when they see that their data is secured by this encrypted link when entering private data such as credit card numbers, usernames, and passwords, or any other sensitive information.
One way to build and check your users’ trust is to make sure you get business reviews. You can start by asking your present customers to check your rating section and leave a contribution there. It’s important to let them know how and why it’s important that you need their opinion on your services, all expressed and posted publicly. The more customers you’ll have, the more reviews you should get. Especially if you’re having a Facebook page where people can stay up-to-da about and connected to your business, and leave reviews.
Yet reviews ask for quick answers from you, however positive or negative they’d be. Commit to visit your review section often and leave comments. Your users need to see you’re a live person, one that doesn’t shy from treating their customers with respect and appreciation.
People like to play and experiment, even if it means to play something else and they just witness it. That’s why augmented reality is a massive hit nowadays, with Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook incorporation motion visuals projected onto the real world and driving people crazy with fascination. And all this AR is connected to video and image.
Video and images are viral nowadays, so you should bet in them. How else do you think platforms like YouTube, Vimeo (video), Flickr, Pinterest, Photobucket (photo), Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat (video & image) have reached this far with their success story?
Source: ama.org
Off-site SEO is about getting attention to your website thanks to outbound activities, unrelated to your page contents. Hence promote your business through videos, podcasts, infographics, quotes etc. Just take the example of Tasty by Buzzfeed or Tastemade. They’re rolling out videos like crazy and people love it, love it, love it. I bet they get more likes, shares, and bookmarks than some blog post published by someone really good at SEO and digital marketing.
Getting back to our sheep, hub pages like Pinterest, Youtube and so on, have massive PageRank and trust, hence you should join them and associate your business with them, by using their platform to post stuff about your products. Given their sharing and like/thumbs up/upvote system, you’ll gain brand awareness through shares and likes.
In addition, the links that you get from YouTube videos and their meta description are extremely valuable and they help you improve your off page SEO.
Last but not least, don’t forget about optimizing your uploaded file titles, file names, description sections, size, and links. SEO works in these niches too.
Although already mentioned this before, you should make friends among those you admire and whose steps you wish to follow in your career. Although with quite a busy schedule, they’re usually willing to guide, inspire, and help. Rand Fishkin had the same message when speaking at Inbound, in 2013.
| Don’t build links. Build relationships. | |
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rand fishkin |
| Founder of SparkTorro @randfish / sparktoro.com | |
Start connecting with them, impress them enough to make them share your content and you’ve won yourself some quality relationships. But beware, you have to make sure you don’t overlook them in time, but always make sure to keep in touch with them, ask for their advice and feature them in your pieces of content. This way, your content is more bound to being shared across their own personal social channels, than random content on your blog.
Last year, I wrote an article called Exclusive 20 Digital Marketing Tips from 20 Top Amazing Women Marketers. And not only was the experience of gathering insights truly unique, but also rewarding. Why? Because a) I got to do the outreach to more than 70 successful women marketers (oh, the honor!) and get to talk with them, and b) we managed to win them on our side, to promote our content, and collaborate on other projects as well. It was a win-win situation. Not to mention the shares we got thanks to their audience.
McDonald, Coca-Cola, and Bic are everywhere. There more people who might’ve heard about them than who’ve heard of a camera, let’s say. And that’s because their marketing strategies are unbeatable. They know how to address all customer segments, satisfy all fans, and deliver tasty and cheap food, or useful tools.
source: entrepreneur.com
Seth Godin believes fans come only with hard work and care.
| “Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “built it”, nurture it, engage them, and they may come and stay. | |
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Seth godin |
| Author & blogger @ThisIsSethsBlog / sethgodin.typepad.com | |
Well-done off-page SEO techniques increase brand reputation and authority. Be present, live this very moment to make your brand heard. Think of easy-to-understand ways to communicate your brand to your customers and attract them with quality services. Make them feel special. Learn how to talk to all customer segments or, at least, define your target audience, instead of floating around in the marketing space with no clue whatsoever.
Nobody wants more of the same thing. Think what people need most and don’t get, seize the opportunity, and deliver. This is how you’ll leave customers a memory of you, of your uniqueness and utility, and someday, of your greatness.
Just look at Buzzfeed (I’m a huge fan, please pardon my enthusiasm). They get ten times more attention when posting something than a random marketing brand does. Because they knew how to shine their way in a world full of tips, recipes, and did-you-knows, and stand out, even though the market was already saturated. Plus, they knew how to address various and different customer segments.
Or Neil Patel. He’s known all over the marketing industry and probably even farther. It’s because he knew how to stand out, be original, deliver easy-to-understand messages and content, one that suits all masses, not just the ones with advanced knowledge in the field of marketing.
By sharing content about your brand on other platforms you’ll be able to rank for keywords your site wouldn’t otherwise be able to compete for, for various reasons like the competition is too strong. If you think your piece of content would serve others’ interest as well, upload documents to doc sharing sites like Scribd, Academia, and SlideShare.
Treat the documents like a traditional piece of content – do keyword research and fully optimize them: titles, file name, transcripts. Place effective call-to-action and links back to your website whenever relevant and possible.
The benefit of having documents posted on such platforms is that PDFs and PowerPoint files can’t be crawled by search engines but these sites make them readable. In addition, you borrow some link juice for your website, which is again, awesome.
Similar to written docs, craft podcasts and videos on your to brand topic and then upload them to SoundCloud, YouTube etc with a transcript. The transcript is where you can help search engine crawlers to bump into your content way easier. That’s SEO, baby!
The more you go out in the world, the more you know and the more you’ll get known. PRactise the habit of attracting the public eye, give and host interviews, gain your influencers’ audience for your brand too. Get visible, and you’ll get noticed.
| The reality is SEO can benefit from PR best practices and PR can benefit from SEO best practices. | |
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dave lloyd |
| Digital Strategist @davelloyd1 | |
Whenever deploying product updates or having something important to communicate, do press releases. By contacting and maintaining a good relationship with journalists and outlets in the field, you’ll help your brand reach out to more customer segments and get your message heard.
PRess releases, interviews, and all these kinds of contributions are a new chance to exercise your SEO and content marketing skills and optimize the content so that search engine would rank it high in SERPs.
For a long time now, search marketing is slightly second after email in terms of top online activities. Hence, you ought to appear in SERPs when users deploy queries.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project
One way is to write exquisite content, make your website super-friendly and eye-catchy, promote it properly, and links together with traffic will follow naturally. Another one would be to build a reader-focused online presence and concentrate on the searcher’s intent. This stuff is part of on-page SEO but do you remember what we’ve previously said about on-page and off-page SEO? It was that successful off-page SEO follows good on-page SEO. So make sure to have good on-page SEO – here’s a guide from Brian Dean on how to do it.
And remember that people only refer to, share, like, and talk about content they like or have a remembrance of. So act accordingly.
Last but not least, avoid playing with fire and practice black hat off-page SEO techniques. You can turn both search engines, visitors, and subscribers to enemies. You can get penalties from Google, get blocked by visitors, or blacklisted by subscribers. And nobody wants that.
To end on a happy note, just be your good self and everything will be just fine. Off-site SEO is here to help.
The post 13 Off-Page SEO Techniques To Drive Organic Traffic & Raise Brand Awareness appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.
