Search Geeks' SEM Smart - Article marketing

Article marketing is a type of advertising in which businesses or companies write short articles related to their respective products or services. These articles are made available for distribution and publication. Well-written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of increasing the authoring business' credibility within its market as well as attracting new clients.

With the rise of e-commerce and Internet marketing especially the Search Engine Marketing (SEM), article marketing has made a move to the online world as well. As in traditional forms of media, online article marketing has served the dual role of providing publishers with essentially free content, and advertisers with essentially free advertising.
Article marketing has become increasingly popular as a marketing method under the Web 2.0 generation of business on the Internet. Many subjects have gained popularity through viral propagation of articles via social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Article marketing has proven to be a useful and effective way to do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which deals with the order in which web pages are ranked for specific keywords. One method of SEO encompasses the idea that a website's rank in search engines will be higher as it obtains more back links. Therefore, writing and distributing articles that contain a link to a business owner's website result in more links back to that website. Theoretically this process will increase that website's rank within search engines. This theory has led to a trend in online marketing toward writing articles solely for SEO purposes. This trend has been matched by a wide selection of article marketing directory websites which accept, vet, and provide redistribution of such articles to online publishers.

The free distribution of articles has, however, led to a large amount of duplicated content appearing on websites across the Internet. The sudden popularity of article marketing has caused an overall reduction in quality in many subjects, mainly due to individuals writing low-quality articles as a quick way of achieving exposure. The quality of articles can also suffer as some authors seek a large quantity of back links at the possible expense of content quality. Efficient use of article marketing as a form of promotion requires invested effort in writing high-quality, relevant articles which is apparently not every business or company can do.

Google published 101 SEO guide

While SEO becoming more and more popular, people start to ask more questions about it on Google webmaster blog or at Google's conferences. Questions like: "What are some simple ways that I can improve my website's performance in Google?", "How do I improve my site?" spread everywhere into Google's forums.
In order to satisfy people's curiosity, Google announced what the search engine really like and published their 101 SEO Starter Guide. 

For your convenience, you can download it here.
Within the document, Google also gives the tips to choose SEO professionals.
This document really describes the basic theory of doing SEO and it could remove the mystique of doing it. And Google helps to eliminate all the myths that are mis-leading the consumers.
Some client asked us: "So what do you actually do to optimize our website?". It's not easy to explain in one or few sentences. Now, we can show this document to our clients: the method of doing SEO is not our invention, we are following what Google announced. What we do is to configure your website to be Google friendly and try to increase the online visibility, not to just targeting some keywords and try to make your website ranking higher.
Although Google's SEO guide is written in very easy-to-understand English. There's still some technical terms or methods which are hard to be understood by people who never touched HTML. Anyhow, feel free to contact WebNatics if you have any questions with this document. We'll see what we can do to help as a Google's Agency.

Tips for a Wordpress SEO blog

Here we posted some tips to get your wordpress blog rank higher in search engines without buying or exchanging links.

1. Google doesn’t care about link depth.

2. The file extension doesn’t matter - you could call files as php, html or even mattcutts.. this is not taken into consideration while calculating the rankings but don’t use the .exe extension.

3. Use a 3-4 word long ALT tag description with every image - good for SEO plus screen readers.

4. Use dashes to separate words, hyphens are OK but spaces are bad.

5. Standardize backlinks (don’t mix and match www with non-www).

6. Make sure post creation dates are easy to find.

7. Use full-text RSS feeds to get loyal users. partial feeds get more page views, but not as much love.

8. Don’t include the post date in your URL.

How to Get Better Visibility on Google | Suggestion from Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts works for the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues. He is well known in the SEO community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines and cracking down on link spam. Cutts also advised the public on how to get better website visibility in Google.(from Wikipedia)

Cutts ever said, "I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."

"The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.'"

Frightening Webmastering Myths from John Mueller

Some people say to do SEO is easy thing. Everybody can do it.
So Everyone gets started somehow with:
* Keyword-stuffing
* Meta tags
* Submit & submit & ...
However the results are:
*nothing changed
*you wasted lots of time
Check out the top 10 myths as rated by a bunch of Googlers organized by John Mueller.

SEO methodology: Best Practices for 404 errors

Having said so much about SEO, most of the time, technical, contents, links. It may surprise you 404 error can also affect your SEO or search engine ranking.

So from SEO perspective, why should be pay attention to 404 error? 2 main reasons, without a customised 404 error page for SEO, 2 possible actions, users may abandon their search, or search engine may think that this Site is not complete or still under construction, think that this Site is not worth of a high SEO ranking.

So what is the purpose to customize a 404 error page for SEO? 1st, it returns a correct code of URLs to tell users and search engine spider that the page they are seeking are not found, and you can also tell the users and search engine spiders what to do next. In SEO perspective, getting a higher ranking in SEO.

SEO for Universal Search

Before the introduction of universal search in the middle of 2007, SEO landscape had been very simple and straight forward.

So why is SEO for universal search important? 1st, most of the time, it stays on top of Search Engine Result page, 2nd, it requires no or lesser reading than text links, and I believe this might be a future of SEO.
So how do we SEO or optimize video contents for universal search?

· Relevancy is still the key, remember to optimize video contents, not your website
· Don’t be stingy on your video, share them; Post them on You Tube, getting user-initiated inputs are never great way to have your videos getting viral.
· Don’t limit to only you tube, there are lots of great sites out there, MySpace Video, AOL Video, and Metacafe are also another great Sites, post your video and contents just like what you do for you tube, increasing your presence in this sites will increase your chance of universal search for SEO
· Your video contents will go nowhere if nobody knows about it, promote it just like the way you links on your web contents for SEO.

SEO on Local Search

Many Small businesses, most of the time, their business transaction doesn’t take place over the Web. Anything you traditionally search for in the print Yellow Pages become a local search on the internet. In this case, the small business owners would prefer their clients to call them or visit their stores.

So, what is the methodology to influence the SEO ranking on Local Search?
1. SEO efforts to enhance local business listings
The local SEO search algorithm is based on relevance, so to make sure your business listings are complete, accurate and up to date. Use good product, or service, or brand terms keywords with geographical extension (e.g. Bangkok Business Hotel.) in your description or title and fit your business in the most relevant categories.
2. SEO efforts to optimize your Site for local terms
Place your city and state in the title tags of your Web site and put your street address and local phone number with area code in text format on your pages. The number and Quality of links pointing to your Web site by a reputation local links are also another important factor.
3. SEO – standardize information.
Local Search engines such as internet yellow pages, eguide – these sites offer free listings, the green book etc contribute “trusted” data to the Search Engines, and you do not want to confuse the Engines with different data or information, so always standardize your information, so be assure to use the same information for all websites
4. Get good reviews
Reviews are always important in your SEO rankings, so if you have successful campaigns execution for your clients, always encourage your clients to put some good reviews about your services to help in the SEO local search ranking.

If Content is Still King, Who is Prince Charming?

Today it’s all about titles. Others have talked about “the title” recently and its importance and even provided ideas for “can’t lose” titles, so I’ll attempt not to be repetitive. For an extensive bunch of articles and tips on headlines – what where when who and how -
Content is vital - in your blog posts, your articles, your seminar presentations, your emails to colleagues, your emails to your clients, your website, your phone conversations with the plumber, your excuses to the wife, your sucking up to the boss, your calming of hurt feelings … the list is truly endless.

But even more important than the content itself is the way you begin that content. I’m not talking about the first line of your blog post, although that is incredibly important also for bringing a reader in. The most important part of your content is the title, the headline, the category, the very first words out of your mouth – in short, the frame around your content.

Consider this. How often have you decided to go ahead and purchase something just because of its name? Look at the genius behind the name “iPod”? I mean you’re buying MP3 player, but you don’t say “I bought an MP3 player today” … you say, “I bought an iPod” and people think you’re cool. Or at least they used to think you’re cool. Just like content, titles can become dated, whether they are the name of a product or the title of a book.

If you pay close attention to the title of your content, you will draw in readers who otherwise might quickly decide that it’s “just another blog entry about linking”

That’s what you’ll get with a title like “Linking and SEO.” Sure, your blog entry may be about the basics of linking in SEO. But if you have a title such as “O-SEM-a Bin Linkin Online,” you will (hopefully) not just get a laugh or two, but also have potential readers asking themselves questions. They may wonder: “is this just a funny title?” or “is this going to be about terrorism online?” or “is Osama bin Laden turning to learning SEM as a way of dealing with his loneliness?” or “OK, I get it … the blog will be about linking and SEM.” Even if the reader says, with disgust, “what a stupid title; it must have been written by a Democrat,” you have their attention a lot longer than the “Linking and SEM” title has.

Flash site - Search Engine Friendly

Flash itself is not bad and for some target markets it can be a great feature to have as part of your site. Unfortunately, flash isn't the best format for doing SEO. It also seems that a lot of designers do not know how to make the best use of flash.

Up until recently the most common use of flash seems to have been the flash movie on a splash page. Besides the fact that studies have shown that almost everyone presses the "skip intro" button meaning the flash intro is not an attention grabber or means of enhancing brand awareness, the flash splash page will kill your site's search engine listings - or ensure you never get any if it's a new site.

Flash MX is supposed to move flash design away from "useless" and "fancy" and into "content" and "usability". It is meant to go some way towards making flash more accessible to disabled users and possibly search engines, but the designer needs to know how to use it correctly in order for it to be effective in this way. It will be some time before flash can be considered either truely accessible or indexable.

So if flash itself horrid? No. The judicial and purposeful use of flash on websites whose target audience will appreciate it is a good thing and can help to increase the site's "stickiness". Games, quiz, surveys, online forms, multi media streaming, and other interactive features are all good uses for flash. And since the rest of the site does not need to be designed in flash, using flash technology in these ways will enhance your web presence without taking anything away from the engines or disabled users who will still able to read and navigate the rest of your html site.

But it goes without saying that sites composed entirely in flash are not going to achieve SEO, even on FAST Alltheweb.com. The SEO problem with flash and is primarily with:

Flash Based Sites: If the site is composed entirely in flash you will ideally design an accessible html site as well. If you do this, provide a link to the other option on each site rather than a splash page giving the options.
Flash Navigation Systems: Flash navigation systems should be complemented by text links either throughout the body copy or as an alternative set of links at the bottom, top or left hand side of the pages.
Flash Splash Pages Flash based splash pages are covered in the splash pages section.

Measuring SEO successfully

Everybody want to know how successful they are if they are doing something. The success of a SEO project should be measured based on the lift of traffic from organic search traffic other than the ranking result. The image below shows an example of a successful SEO project. Sometimes a little action can make your web traffic on fire.

Ranking can also be very important because if only the pages sit on higher positions the website is possible to acquire traffic. But if you think that the ranking positions are the only measurement of SEO success, you are totally wrong. SEO success should be measured by both the growing up of organic traffic and the ranking position of some most important keywords. For the businesses like airlines, hotels, etc which has seasonality effects, the measurement data should be compared year over year.
So you can understand how important it is to choose the right keywords in the very beginning. If a wrong keyword was selected, even if one of your pages ranked No.1 in every search engine, you still can’t benefit from it simply because few people search that keyword.
Now, you may wonder how to measure the organic traffic. The very first thing is to make sure your web analytics is set up correctly. And, if you're trying to compare history traffic data, month over month or year over year, the data need to be accumulated within your analytics console. There’re two different types of web analytics. One is browser side web analytics, another one is server side analytics. Both of them have their own advantages and disadvantages. No matter which way you choose to use, implement it correctly has no doubt to be most important step.
Is your analytics set up correctly?
One tool that we recommend is Google Analytics (GA). Many of our clients are using this tool on their site. It is free, easy to install, monitor. For some clients who used it before our consultation, I've noticed that only a few of them implement it perfectly.
1. One big error is that not having the tracking code on every page of website. The easiest way to ensure this file is on every page is to create a server side include file that is universal across all of your pages, and place your analytics code in that file. If you don't have an include file, make sure to check the source of every page to ensure all pages have the code. Again, make sure this is done before you create the baseline for your SEO efforts.
2. Another error is CPC data can’t be separated from organic search traffic. Sometimes the CPC data is being reported as organic traffic. To fix this, enable auto tagging in your Google AdWords account. A gclid code will be added at the end of all landing page URLs and the data in this code tells your GA information about which campaign, ad group, keyword, ad position, and other data about the CPC clicks. But sometimes, this gclid code might make your landing page trigger a 404 error which means you pay for the visitors come to your website, but they can’t see the content you want to show to them. Please take note that Google will not be responsible for this. Make sure that Google AdWords and Google Analytics accounts are properly linked.
3. One more error need to be mentioned is that sometimes a redirect within the website anywhere can cause error reporting in the console.

SEO strategy – helping your customers find your business

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of shining a spotlight on an otherwise invisible website. Our SEO consultants do more than effective SEO. We do effective website marketing, and SEO is one incredibly useful method.
We begin by assuming that your goal is to make a profit or promote a cause, not to be able to say "We are the top ranked site for whatever." Our preoccupation with your bottom line begins in selecting the search terms to work on, so that you are targeting real and reachable customers who are ready to spend. We then work to build your rankings, so that customers will find your website rather than your competitors' websites. Finally, we make sure that your landing pages - the pages that rank high in the search engines. This is a major oversight of many SEO consultants, who are focused just on what happens at Google or Yahoo or MSN, but do not take a direct interest in your sales process.
Nurture the search engines, and they will nurture you. Feed them information you would want your visitors to read, and that's what they will feed your visitors."
You don't need to hire a local SEO consultant; you do need to hire the best. We operate using the following optimization principles:
• Follow the letter and the spirit of the search engines' guidelines, to avoid placing our clients in current or future trouble.
• Focus on the visitors, both humans and robots, when optimizing a website.
• Rankings are not good enough - the listing has to sell and the page has to deliver.
• We are not coders. We are strategists who use coding and other techniques to market your business and your website.
• Non-reciprocal links are more valuable than reciprocal links.
• More is not necessarily better. Optimal is better (that's what it means to "optimize").
• Trust is a valuable commodity. Don't make false promises to clients.
• Never work for two clients targeting the same search terms (avoid conflict of interest).
• We don't do "crash 'n' burn" SEO. If that's what you are looking for, there are plenty of unethical SEO consultants who do.
Amazingly, many professional search engine optimizers are coders who think of themselves as coders. We are strategists, who think of ourselves as website marketers. We use coding as a tool to get our message across, but it is only one tool at our disposal.

Off page optimization

Add your website into major local search engines.

This will help a lot in terms of driving traffic to your site, as local people are likely to be more interested with your business. So first do a little research about which sites are the most commonly used search engines in your location. If you can't find any specific popular site that people use, you have to use some brand search engines, like Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc. They all have some similar sections with which you can submit your business, address, phone number and so on.

Add your website into industry specific directories.

Try to search for your relevant business directory and industry directory. For example, I would search “Singapore online business directory” and “SEO company directory” for this website. Make sure to record the directories you added your site to and the usernames and passwords you use. Don’t use the same user name and password although it’s easier to remember and maintain, because it’s not safe. Internet security is always a factor that many people worry about when they do SEO.

Build more links from any possible relevant websites.

Links can be from your partners, your customers, even your competitors. Analysis what links that your competitors have got, you can use the list of link sources you generated from Yahoo Site Explorer. Later try to acquire links from those online resources that they introduced to you. Remember always use the keywords in the anchor text of that link. Do something offline to find link resources. Links online suggests your public relationship somehow. You can also make use of social network. Facebook, LinkedIn are the explorers of this area.

Create and maintain your sitemaps

Create a sitemap page and remember to update it when you have new content added. To create a sitemap page is easy to do but to create a XML sitemap may need some technical support. After creating the xml sitemap, logon to Google Webmaster and submit it. Of course you need to be verified first before you can login.


This article is the continue part three of Checklist for Doing SEO. You may also want to read part two of this topic: On Page Optimization.

On page optimization - (Checklist for Doing SEO Part Two)

This article is the continue part two of Checklist for Doing SEO
Make use of online traffic analysis tool.
Sign up the webmaster tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and Live Search Webmaster Center. These tools will give you sufficient information about your site which could help you to do a good SEO job. Let Google Analytics gather some traffic data as a bench mark before you start your SEO work. Don't forget about history. It can point out the right direction to you.
Evaluate the visual design of your client's site.
If the site is too scary for people to browse, do SEO for it will become a waste of time. A good designer will bring you into the door of success.
Check compatibility of site between different browsers and operating systems.
Visit your client's site using different web browser. The most popular browsers are as follow: Internet Explorer (IE) version 6.0, IE 7.0, Mozilla Firefox, Safari and the Google Chrome. And the operating system that a visitor may use is normally either Windows or Macintosh. Although Linux become more popular than before, there's still few people use it.
Add a robots.txt in your domain root folder.
It allows you to specify exactly which pages search engines can crawl and it makes search engines easier to index your site because they always download the file before navigating through pages of your site. Having a robots.txt makes your website search engine friendly because it's like saying hello to those crawlers.
Have one copy of brief introduction of website in hand.
This is for the link building directory submissions.
Analyze the HTML code and optimize all of the SEO related Meta tags.
The following Meta tags are very important:

1. Title tags
2. Meta keywords tags
3. Meta description tags
4. H1 tags

Optimize URL architecture.
Link your pages with each other is very important. Don't leave any single page hanging alone.
Optimize your images
On relevant images include keywords in alt tags in their file names.
Navigation analysis
Add navigation links at the bottom of every page if your main navigation links are in flash or none-friendly JavaScript navigation menu. This will help the spiders crawl from one page to another and complete the indexing of the whole site more fluently.

Checklist for Doing SEO - (Part One)

Before you do any SEO, you need to research some factors and find out the part need to be changed. Many people believe the following checklist gives the most important steps in the SEO process.

• Go through the basic knowledge of web development.
  
• Write down your target. Ask yourself: Why are you doing SEO? Why do you want people to find your site?
  
• Brainstorm and write down possible search queries that people may interested with your site. Ask yourself: What words might people type into the search engines to look information that your website can provide? For example, I came up with “Story of Zeus”, "greek mythology" for a website talking about stories.
  
• Research your chosen keywords. Sign up for Google Adwords and learn how to use the provided “keyword tool” and “ad text ideas” generator. Learn how to use Wordtracker (paid) and some other SEO Tools (free).
• Using what you got from keyword research, record what you believe to be the best keywords for SEO.
• Analyze the current Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for your keywords. Gather information about: Who is ranking high in SEO result? What are their advantage and disadvantage? Investigate and get to know your competition.
• Create a list of your competition. This is also to set your target. You will be more clear to know what you should once you have set your competitors.
• Use some link analysis tool like Yahoo Site Explorer to find the sources of your competitor's links.
• Search for your site in search engines to figure out whether it's been indexed. Use the site command on Google, Live and Yahoo “site:www.yoursite.com” If your client's site is not indexed, you need to figure out what is preventing the search engines from crawling it. Google's Webmaster tool can be a good helper for this step.

On page optimization will be the part two of this topic.