When digging into the site analytics to determine the performance of your SEO campaign, be careful not to get so keyword centric that you lose sight of the overall impact of your efforts. Often times when we are link building for specific keywords, it’s easy to judge the effect by reporting the traffic and conversions directly brought in from that exact phrase. However, a much better indicator is to use keyword sets to show the impact across any variation containing elements of your keyword, so as to capture short and long tail keywords that alone may only bring in 1 or 2 visits, but together account for the vast majority of traffic and typically convert at a much higher rate.

When pulling data for a keyword set, simply use advanced filters pull results containing the main piece of your keyword, meaning the word(s) that sets it apart from other keywords. Here are a couple filter variations:

In this example, when targeting both “graphic design services” and “graphic design agency”, the main part of the keyword that you want to track is “graphic design” as that will tell you whether or not your campaign is working, plus you may find in the results that “graphic design company” is the real winner. Just make sure you separate “graphic” and “design” so that you capture all variations.

PageRank is shrouded in mystery. Is it a boon, a bane, or simply irrelevant? Some despise its ambiguity, and others use it as the primary factor for determining a site’s worth. I would like to discuss both sides of this issue.

With a vast sea of info available online, getting your website noticed requires some forethought and continued improvement efforts – especially when making your website visible on Google.  So, starting with Google – Matt Cutts explained in a recent interview for Stone Temple Consulting that PageRank influences “how deep we’ll go within a site” in terms of crawling.  Cutts elaborates saying that PageRank directly influences the number of other pages you may be competing with; in other words, low PR pages are part of a larger pool, and are crawled less frequently.  However, this opinion and the importance of PR are batted back-and-forth across the industry, including within Google!

According to an article by The Register, Google research head Peter Norvig told the SMX West conference in Santa Clara, “People [webmasters and SEOs] always said, ‘we’re stuck if we don’t have a high PageRank.’ But we never felt that way. We never felt that it was such a big factor.”  Norvig continued:

“PageRank has a catchy name and the name recognition. But we’ve always looked at all the things that are available when ranking search results. We look at where do things come from, what are the words used, how do they interact with each other, how do people interact with them.”

The opinions of countless webmasters seem to agree that there are other factors to consider when evaluating page value, according to WebmasterWorld.com.  Although these factors differ slightly, the majority value backlinks to a page, and to truly assess the importance the backlinks need to be manually checked; for both relevance and quantity.  Clearly a larger volume of related links is going to drive desired traffic, so what else? Other sentiments offer that Google’s PageRank is not objective, and simply exists to influence linking patterns.  Essentially this means that if a site relies only on PageRank, the idea of quantifiable metrics is lost.  Meaning, the ability to understand your site’s niche and go after quality, varied, related links.

Google’s advice on the matter:

“The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it.”

Regardless of its actual value, nobody can deny that PageRank still holds a perceived value amongst a majority of linking relationships.  The general wisdom, despite the flame wars that have surrounded the topic, is that PageRank should neither be regarded nor ignored. It is one lonely metric in a series of metrics that will determine if a site will hold value. As Google and search algorithms evolve, we are going to see smarter crawlers that are able to more effectively identify actual content, and this is going to be the key factor for years to come. It is the now and future of search. Repeat after me… “Content is King!”

In our interactive weekly roundup two weeks ago, I included an article from Search Engine Journal that explained why the author believes link building through guest posts is a bad idea. Today, Ann Smarty posted a counter article that explains why link building through guest posts is, in fact, a good idea. I had originally included the blurb in the roundup because, while I didn’t necessarily agree, I thought it was an interesting view and the author provided sufficient reasoning to back up his argument. However, this author was focused on the value of each link in the blog, and not on the bigger-picture value that a well-written, interesting article can provide. Because I’m usually wearing my PR hat (it fits my head much better than the SEO hat), I have to agree with Ann Smarty’s take on this issue. And here’s why:

Ann warns that you should never focus on the link building aspects of guest posting. Wait, what? That seems to go against the whole point of guest blogging. Yet, Ann explains that if you are focused too much on building links, you won’t be able to provide quality content and bloggers will see through this transparent strategy immediately, most likely rejecting your post. Instead, focus on the other benefits of guest blogging, such as branding, positioning yourself as an expert in the field, building valuable contacts and other results that don’t directly provide link juice, but are equally invaluable. This is where the PR zealot inside of me goes nuts, “Yes! It’s about establishing credibility and helping others to see you as the authority on that topic. The rest will follow in due time.”

Ann also states that if you focus on quality of content, rather than link opportunities, you’ll receive more links through other blogs that either pick up your guest post immediately or become a dedicated reader and link to subsequent posts you publish. Much like in social media, you can’t force content to go viral, but if you create something compelling and link-worthy, the results may astound you.

In this industry, it’s easy to get caught up in quantifying every last aspect—that is one of the major benefits of search. But it’s not the only one available and it’s certainly not the only one you should be concerned with. When guest blogging, establishing credibility for your brand and yourself should come first. If you’re knowledgeable about the subject matter and honest in your approach, the links will follow naturally.

If you blog it (well), they will link.

The day has finally arrived. In July last year, we first announced the imminent Microsoft and Yahoo! merger. Today, antitrust regulators in the United States and Europe cleared Microsoft to take over Yahoo!’s search business, without any imposing restrictions on the partnership. This MSFT / Yahoo! partnership has been named “Search Alliance”.

In our opinion, this is a great opportunity for our clients as it will level out the playing field, and finally presents a challenge for Google. We have been disappointed with Yahoo!’s differences in understanding standard industry terms when they decided to go with advanced and standard match, instead of broad, phrase and exact match. Microsoft AdCenter remains consistent with industry standard definitions, which will certainly help our paid advertisers. We feel clients will benefit from additional volume, relevance, quality and increased conversions due to more robust control on the backend and increased transparency. Microsoft, after all, is a technology company.

How will this impact the content network for these two partners? Between the two of them, they have the largest trafficked content networks on the web. Separately, they have both failed in being able to offer a solid product to advertisers. I am hoping that this combined effort will increase the opportunity in that area.

How will this impact SEO? Will they hold more weight now? What are your thoughts?

By now, you may have heard. Google is personalizing everyone’s search results. *GASP* Even if you are not logged in! For the average user this might prove useful. Who wouldn’t want to see sites they like at the top of search results? On the flip side, though, search results may start to look very similar despite what users search for.

Search Engine Land did a great piece on the new Google search results including how to disable these customizations. As an SEO Management company, we are not running around crazy screaming at Google just yet. To fully understand what this means for our clients, we are going to be paying close attention to our analytics data.  Is traffic decreasing? Are we seeing less conversions?

We are also going to spend time educating our clients on why it is important to disable personal customizations. If they are continuously searching around their terms and clicking on their links, obviously their results are going to start looking very good. The bad news? The same will also happen with their competitors.

Only time can tell the true impact of Big G’s decision. Unfortunately this feature comes standard and it is up to individual users to disable. The majority of internet users will never know this feature exists, let alone that it can be turned off. Is this the demise of SEO? Not at all – but it is going to make our work much more difficult.

As we learn more about the impact of personalized search results, we will post. So stay tuned…

Organic SEO is like having perfectly imperfect hair – it looks natural but it actually requires a lot of work.  Successful organic SEO is results-driven and utilizes social media as a way to drive traffic to your clients’ websites.  Because social media is – wait for it – social, you’ll need to cultivate a network of online buddies who will be willing to help you get your clients’ content noticed.  Think of each person with an online presence as having a megaphone – some people have louder megaphones than others and therefore the content that they produce and comment on reaches a wider audience. In the marketing industry, we call those folks with the loudest megaphones “Influencers”. 

Influencers tend to have “niche-power”, meaning that they are the trusted experts in a very specific field.  If your client is an e-tailer that specializes in triathlon gear for example, you’ll need to find Influencers who are authorities within the endurance sports community.   Even if you have limited knowledge of the niche in which you are searching for Influencers, they are easy to identify when you look in the right places:

1)      Google – Influencers love Google and Google loves Influencers.  After all, they were the folks who were invited to Google Wave before the masses knew what it was.  (And most of them now have the chance themselves to hand out invites that seem as rare as the golden tickets into Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory).  To find Influencers on Google, first subscribe to 10 industry specific blogs that are updated at least once a day in your Google Reader.  Find a post that a handful of bloggers marked as “like” (located under the title of the post) and click on one of the names.  That person’s Google profile will open in your window, and links to all of their social profiles across the web will be displayed across the top of the page. 

Click on those links, check out their sites, and comment on a few of their blog posts.  Make sure to include your email address and links to at least one of your social profiles in your comments so that they have a way to contact you.

2)         Twitter – Most Influencers have a link to their twitter profile on their Google profile.  Click on that link, and then click “follow” under their avatar when you arrive at their page.  You can also find niche Influencers by searching for keywords  in recently published tweets. Because Twitter has a very specific set of social norms, you’ll need to stroke you Influencer’s online ego before they will willingly push your content out.  See “The Art of the Tweet” by Crystal.

3)         Get local – Influencers are jumping on the geolocation bandwagon right now.  Consequently, they are the most active users on location-based social networking sites like Gowalla, Foursquare, and Brightkite. 

4)         Yahoo! Answers – Influencers are perceived as experts within their niche, and Yahoo! Answers has provided an easy way to identify the users with the most authority.  Click on the most relevant category on the left sidebar.  When that page opens, you will see the profiles of the users who have answered the most questions in that category on the right sidebar.  Click on their profiles to get their contact information. 

Once you identify the Influencers around the web with the loudest megaphones, make sure to build relationships with them by actually being interested in what they have to say.   By engaging in a continued dialogue with Influencers, you will have more linking opportunities.  As their influence grows, so does yours.  This will result in long-term sustained growth in traffic to your clients’ sites instead of sharp jumps and drops in traffic.  Just as you would take care to style that perfectly messy hair, you need to make sure that you are finding the right people to assist you in your organic SEO efforts.

Last week, Tarla wrote an excellent post on how to report your SEO success. Definitely give it a once-over if you haven’t already! For this weeks tip, I wanted to take those tips and push them one step further.

One comment (or question rather) I often hear is “Why?”  As Tarla mentioned, clients have every right to fully understand the campaign they are paying for and it is our job as the experts to make sure they are not left with unanswered questions.

After you have gathered the heaps and heaps of data and placed everything into nice charts and graphs, do your clients a favor and explain what that data dump actually means. Great! You ranked in position one in Google…so what? If you can begin to accurately answer all of those “so what” and “why” questions, then not only will you be providing much needed campaign insight to your client, but you will be proving the true value of your SEO campaign. By forcing yourself to answer these questions, you too will gain insight into your campaign that will help with optimization.

From the start of the campaign explain why certain keywords were chosen instead of others. How will these keywords impact traffic volume? What kind of search trends do you see with these keywords? Why do some keywords work and others do not? Of course, some of this might be subjective but, by using your handy dandy toolkit you should be able to give some kind of working estimate.

Instead of only showing one month’s position report, consider showing trends – or at the very least several months at a time. Is there a certain grouping of keywords that are trending better? Why would one downward trend of keywords not matter as much as a downward trend of another keyword? What does the overall performance look like over 3 months time, 6 months, or a year? Using these trends, your client can compare quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year and see the benefits in black and white (or color, depending on your print properties).

We know our industry. We’re the experts. If we can’t answer all of our clients questions then we are not providing high-quality service. In the perfect world, however, we will be able to answer all of those questions before our clients even ask.

Do you care what you get for your hard earned cash? If you buy a toaster, do you mind when it only cooks the right side of your bagel? I’m going to take a shot in the dark that yes, yes you do. Well believe me when I say it should be no different when it comes to your marketing dollar. Search Engine Optimization is still a new concept for most people, even for many of those in the search industry. Unlike pay per click where you can track exactly how much you got for what you spent, SEO is illusive and unpredictable. Therefore, as someone who receives money for SEO services rendered, it’s my job to make sure my clients are as satisfied as possible with their purchase. My tip this week is what you should expect to see (if you’re the client) or be sure to include (if you’re the agency) within your SEO campaign reports:

1. Keyword positions within the three main search engines (Google, Yahoo! and Bing). Make these keyword lists as robust as possible, because even if you are focused on a tight group of words, these efforts should have a trickle-down effect on various others.
2. Traffic by keyword, using the same keywords as above as well as any others found to bring in a decent volume of visits. For this you need to make sure the paid traffic is broken out from the organic within the website analytics.
3. Conversions/actions by keyword. This will be the true indicator if your SEO campaign is working. So what if you get keyword A to position one in Google if it doesn’t convert?
4. Visits by keyword in relation to their position. This report combines the first two I mentioned, only this gives some perspective as to how the potential of each keyword. For instance, if keyword A is bringing in hundreds of visits but is only on the bottom of page one, then you better start working to get it to the top.
5. Number of backlinks over time. This is great indicator of whether the link building campaign is really building links.
6. Monitor the website stats with Quantcast, Compete and Alexa, and hopefully they will show that the value of the website is growing.
7. Using a tool like SpyFu that crawls Google for all keywords ranking for your website as well as your competitors, you can track how many are in positions 1, 2 and 3, and pages 1, 2 and 3 each month to make sure that those numbers are increasing.

BUT, my most important recommendation to you is this: Get all of this data first BEFORE the campaign starts so that you can truly prove the value of the SEO efforts.

After a brief phone conversation with one of my colleagues who is on the SEO team, it became obvious just how different we PR people are from link developers. I was excitedly telling this colleague about some media coverage we are getting in a regional advertising publication. The article is about agencies that are doing pro bono work for nonprofits; they are including our interactive marketing efforts for SOS Outreach, an outdoor youth outreach organization. In addition to his link dev duties, this colleague also acts as a project manager for all of the campaigns we manage for SOS, which is why I thought he would be interested in the coverage.

After I told him about the magazine and explained how we fit into the story, the first thing out of his mouth was something to the effect of “that’ll be a great link.” No “that’s sweet, we’re getting some ink.” No “SOS will be pumped.” No “congrats on getting the coverage, Angie.” Instead, he was focused solely on the link that we most-likely get from the online version of their mag (I doubt the print version even crossed his mind).

I must admit that I was taken aback at first. I didn’t expect him to reach through the phone to give me a high-five or immediately send a singing telegram to my office, but I didn’t anticipate this reaction either. After I hung up the phone, all I could do was chuckle at our different mindsets and priorities. Of course I want and see the value of links to our site, and of course he wants us to get media coverage and understands the benefits, but these are not our first reactions. As a company, we are fortunate that we have so many different i departments and, thus, have someone who is always looking out for these details. And not just because it’s their job, because it’s an instinct and a passion.

The moral of this little anecdote is that we all have different strengths, and that is how we’ve ended up in the careers and industries that we’re in. We must embrace and celebrate these difference sand learn to work together to cover all bases. So, here’s to our strengths, to our differences and to thorough colleagues!

Every week an employee from Location3 thinks of a search marketing question and quizzes everyone in the company via email. These quizzes started out as a way to brainstorm blog topics but have grown to become a way to educate all of our employees on the different services our company offers. Everything from social media and search engine optimization to pay per click and analytics. A few weeks ago, search engine optimization was the topic so the questioner found an interesting and rather thought-provoking question from SEOmoz.

Which of the following is the WORST criterion for estimating the value of a link to your page/site?

A. The popularity of the domain on which the page is hosted according to Alexa

B. The ranking of the linking page for its targeted keywords

C. The number and quality of other external links on the page

D. The PageRank of the page in the Google toolbar

E. The inclusion of the page in the indices of the major search engines

Apparently this one is a doozy because we only had one employee get the question correct. According the SEOmoz quiz, choice “A” is the worst indicator of the value of a link to your page.

Alexa traffic ranking is considered one of the worst indicators of a website’s popularity and importance. This is due to the fact that Alexa gathers most of its data from the traffic of people who download Alexa’s tool bar. According to Alexa, it “could not exist without the participation of the Alexa toolbar community. …by using the toolbar, each member is contributing valuable information about the web.” Statistically, the 10 million downloads of the toolbar would be an effective way of gathering data for larger and well-known types of sites (i.e., Google, Yahoo!, Facebook).

Many people who use the Alexa toolbar are going to be more knowledgeable about the web than those that have never heard of the toolbar before. Therefore, it is using a very specific and self-elected population to draw very general conclusions about internet traffic. Furthermore, webmasters can easily encourage their network and site visitors to download and use the toolbar to help their own site’s ranking.

When it comes to judging the importance of a site and the links coming from it, Google page rank seems to be a more common option chosen by SEOs, but many will argue that page rank is also inaccurate. What do you value as the BEST criteria for estimating the value of a link to your page or site?