The Maine SEO Blog

I’m a huge advocate for measuring success and using geeky measurement tools to do it.  As a compliment to Google Analytics, there is Webmaster Tools.  While there is some overlap between the two, together, they give you a pretty good picture of how your site is doing.  And while some think Google knows too much about our websites (yes, they see same data as you do), the trade off is that it’s free.

1. Installation is easy. Choose to either plop a meta-tag into your code or upload an HTML file.
2. Quickly check for web crawl errors. Have any 404 errors?  Any nofollows or robots.txt you didn’t know about?
3. Can your site be accessed via smart phone? No need to check manually…Webmaster Tools will tell you!
4. Specific help for SEO. In the Diagnostics > Content Analysis section, check out any meta-description, title tag, or non-indexable content issues your site may have.
5. Top Search Queries. More of a fun fact than anything.  What top 20 keywords do you rank for?  What percentage of people that search for that term click on your site?  More importantly, ask yourself…are these the terms you optimized your site for?
6. “What Googlebot sees.” Very powerful information.  You can see exactly what anchor text people are using when linking to your site.
7. Pages with external links. Which are your most linked-to (read:popular) pages?  Webmaster Tools will show you most, if not all, of your incoming links.  Plus, you can view your backlinks in graph form with Glync.
8. Remove a URL. This tool can be incredibly useful if you have duplicate content or have removed a page for some reason.  This tool goes hand-in-hand with the web crawl errors page: after you find an error, you can then remove the page from Google’s index (it usually takes only a few days to complete the process).
9. Various other perks of having Webmaster Tools: crawl stats (how often Google crawls your site), subscriber stats (if you have a blog or email newsletter: how many subscribers do you have?), view your sitemap(s), generate and view your robots.txt file, enhance your 404 error pages (if you don’t already have a template matching your own design), and many more!

Nicki Hicks
If I add any more tools to my toolbox, where the heck am I gonna put my hammer?

About a week and a half ago, I attended a MarketingProfs webinar with SEO and link building gurus Stephan Spencer and Eric Ward.  The presentation itself was called “Link Building for Online Publicity, Buzz & SEO – What’s New & What’s Tried and True”.

Here is a sampling of my notes, basically the major things I pulled from the presentation (most of which I either did not know or Stephan and Eric simply solidified).

• It’s not all about the SEO and PageRank. It’s about driving qualified traffic; there are other quality links (many that have no SEO value at all) that you should go after:
  - Directory links (DMOZ, Yahoo! Directory)
  - Temporary buzz links (Digg)
  - Paid-for links (Eric gave the example of Adbrite)
  - Vertical links
  - Email-based links
  - Links from blogs
  - Editorial links
  - Organic links
• Finding vertical/topical links:
  - searchengineguide.com/searchengines.html
  - searchenginecolossus.com
  - Google (search for “seo search engine”)
• 301 redirects pass link juice; 302′s do not.
• Tips for requesting links:
  - Subject line is the most important, letting the webmaster or blogger know that you are not a spammer.  Make it personal and use the title of their site.
  - Make the email short and sweet, again letting the webmaster/blogger know you’re not a spammer.  Link to a specific page (preferably NOT the homepage) and why/how it would interest their audience.
  - Include a brief overview of what the site is all about – don’t make your potential linker do all the work!
• Tips for link reclamation (in other words, what to do if your URLs change):
  - Identify these useless links in your Google Webmaster Tools
  - Contact linking sites
  - 301 redirect
• Tips for updating link text (in other words, getting backlinks to change anchor text from “click here” to something a little more relevant and keyword rich):
  - Review existing backlinks with a backlink analyzer (something like Linkscape from SEOmoz)
  - If the keywords you’re targeting are NOT in the anchor text, consider contacting the webmaster/blogger (using the same sort of technique as requesting links).
• Check how PageRank is flowing and if you have an error codes with a Server Header Checker (search for Google and use one of the top 10).
• Track link building efforts with tools:
  - trackengine.com
  - changenotes.com
  - google.com/alerts
  - urlywarning.net
  - changedetect.com

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

Have a safe and happy holiday; and if you’re traveling to or from New England, be careful in the snow!!  (Or just use it to build an obnoxiously large snowperson….)

We’ve begun, of late, to suggest our clients not only optimize their sites, but their blogs too.  Here are some easy ways to start:

1. Keyword-rich titles. Since your blog titles become your page titles, make them keyword-rich and, at the same time, enticing to your readers.  Using negative titles can often be a good hook (like “5 Ways to Lose Money this Holiday Season”).
2. Optimize your categories. Category names have an obsene about of SEO benefits: they are links, usually apart of the URL, and can also help readers make decisions (for example, when looking into your archives – which categories interest them).  So, category titles should be keyword-rich and descriptive.
   There’s a discrepancy as to whether or not it’s better to assign a blogpost to a single category or more than one.  Typically, your blog will choose which category it is designated to, and Google will index it under that category.  Duplicate content is the issue here, so watch out!
3. Link Building. Ping back your own blogposts as often as you can – as long as they provide a good resource for what you’re talking about.  Link to other sites as you would on your website – to quality sites and blogs.
4. Post often. Blogs tend to get crawled and indexed more because of how often new content is added.  For a new blog, posting 2-3 times a week should be a priority.  After your blog has collected a certain amount of trust and readership, posting at least once a week (depending on how much you have to write about) is important.
5. Bonus out-of-the-box idea: Set your blog to follow comment links. This way, your readers will more likely leave intelligent comments, knowing they get a link out of it – and therefore starting a more interesting coversation.  Of course, you’ll need to monitor your comments that much more heavily.

So if you have a blog or are thinking about starting one, remember…SEO is just as important there as for your website!!!

Nicki Hicks
Maine Blogging

AdWords is Google’s paid search program – complete with an easy-to-use interface and, when campaigns are done correctly, can actually add to your conversions.

1. Do a keyword analysis. No ifs, ands, or buts about this one…unless you enjoy throwing away money.  Theoretically, that’s exactly what you’re doing if you choose keywords blindly.  Find out what your customers are searching for and target those keywords.  There are a ton of keyword research tools out there – both free and paid.
2. Set up your account.
3. Choose which is right for you: starter or standard edition.
4. Target the right customers. You have the option to target by language (if applicable) and geographic location.

   
   

5. Create your ad.

   
   Tips for creating ads:
   a.  Use keywords in your headline whenever possible.
   b.  Write a long paragraph about your business, then narrow it down to the main points.
   c.  Include negative or “filtering” language when applicable.
   d. Test, tweak, and track your campaign(s).

6. Choose your keywords. (Using a tool like Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool will give you an idea of competition for keywords and phrases.)
7. How much are you willing to spend? Per day?  Every time someone clicks on your ad?  You get to choose!

   
   

8. Define your campaigns based on:
   a.  Time restraints (for example, turn your ads off at night)
   b.  Demographics (age, gender, etc.)
   c.  Geographic Location
   d.  And more!
9. Track your conversions with Google Analytics and Placement Performance Reports from AdWords.

Paid Search in conjunction with Organic Search can really do wonders.  The key is simple: keep an eye on your stats and what your customers are searching for!

Nicki Hicks
People really DO click on the right side!

I’m not sure about you, but when I end up on a page like SEOmoz’s Pro + Free SEO Tools, I’m immediately overwhelmed.  There, you are faced with a huge list of search tools, all of which can be helpful in your quest for more search visibility.  The thing is, who has time to use them all?!  So, I decided to look into them further, and break them down depending on the project.

SEO Auditing

These tools will help whether your site is new or old – giving you some insight into what you might be missing!

• Linkscape (free) – the general overview of your site – reports generated showing mozRank, mozTrust, and the number of internal and external links.  In addition, with the paid subscription, you can run a full report – which adds the mozRank of those sites linking to you, the anchor text used when linking, and a few other cool measurements.
• Trifecta (free) – measures the relative popularity/importance of a website, replacing the Page Strength tool.  You can also compare your site/blog to up to 4 other sites.
• Crawl Test (free) – find what pages are crawable, indexed, or might even have issues!
• GeoTargeting Detection (free) – very helpful if your company is localized; this tool shows you where your listings are on the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live) according to location.

Analyzing Keywords

• Term Target (free) – checks for keyword density for a specific term.  Neat bonus: SEOmoz shows you where your terms are located (title, meta-tag, header, etc.)
• Term Extractor (free) – exactly that: pulls the top words for a given page (broken into one-word keywords, 2-, and 3-word phrases.
• Keyword Difficulty (paid) – run a report to show the competition and opportunity for a given keyword or phrase.

Link Building

• Anchor Text Analysis (paid) – advanced view of backlinks including anchor text.
• Juicy Link Finder (paid) – by choosing a specific keyword, this tool will give you some great links – including the age of the site/page and its PageRank.

Just for Fun

• Popular Searches (free) – pulling from a large list of sources (Google, Amazon, Technorati, and so on), this tool shares the top ten most popular searches for any given day.
• SEO Toolbox (free) – a large variety of free tools: strongest pages on domain, who else is hosted on my IP, check inclusion, check backlinks, outbound link checker, check PageRank, find domain age, check HTTP status code, check indexed pages, whois, and IP location.
• Rank Checker (paid) – checks rankings for specific keywords in whichever search engine you choose.

SEOmoz’s tool set is incredibly helpful, and I found looking at the tools this way – based on project – helps make them an important part of every job.  By the way, many of the paid tools are extra cool, so I would highly recommend getting a Pro Membership if you don’t have one already!

Nicki Hicks
Who said cool toys are just for kids?

You may have noticed this tiny green bar on your Google toolbar that changes with every site you visit.  In its simplest terms, PageRank is one of Google’s ways to assign weight and rank to websites.

Google bases this particular algorithm off of millions of variables; the major factor being the number of (quality) incoming links.  While no one knows their true PR, the toolbar will at least give you an idea of where you’re at: with a number from 1-10, 1 being low PR and 10 high PR.  (Similarly, you will never know exactly how many incoming links your site has, but Yahoo’s Site Explorer will give you a fairly close number).  Google updates toolbar PageRank approximately every 3 months.

Being somewhat inquisitive, I decided to investigate a little further.  I took a look at 10 sites – with toolbar PR of 1-10.

I also included age because I’ve seen PageRank increase over time, simply from gaining trust from traffic rather than backlinks.  I wanted to test whether or not it had much impact on PR.  However, from this small sample, it seems too difficult to infer that age has anything to do with PR.  Perhaps with a larger sample, I could decide differently.

However, it is easy to see the direct relation between PR and backlinks.  Due to the drastic change in the number of backlinks, I had to split the charts: PR 10-6, then PR 5-1 following in order to see the similarities.

What I learned and confirmed

1. Don’t rely on your toolbar PR; use it instead as a relative guide.
2. Get as many quality, incoming links as you can.
3. Since blogs generally acquire more backlinks than regular sites, a young blog can have a better PageRank than an older site.
4. The only other website with a PR 10 (as far as anyone can tell) than Google, USA.gov, has just over 11 million backlinks – millions less than any examples I provided above a PR 7  – proving the power of a .gov (.edu’s are powerful too!).

Nicki Hicks
Watch your back(links)

Conversions are more important than rankings – they are the goal.  Sure, good rankings should lead to higher conversions; but being #1 should not be your first priority.  Using Google Analytics, you have the opportunity to set up a total of four goals for each website (should you have multiple sites) to track your conversions.

Click the edit button on the Dashboard page in your Analytics.  There, you’ll find all of the settings for your account.  What we’re interested in are the Conversion Goals and Funnels.

Again, you see you have four goals to choose from.  Pick “edit” for one of the goals.

1. Turn the goal “on”.
2. Choose Match Type. Exact Match requires the URL you enter to be exactly the one your users will land on – good for things like a Thank You page for email subscriptions.  Head Match is best for URLs with unique values – checkout pages, for example, where the content is dynamically generated.  Regular Expression Match is best for pages where the stem and/or URL is dynamic.  Google uses this example: “page=1 will match http://sports.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1&id=002 as well as http://fishing.example.com/checkout.cgi?page=1&language=fr&id=119.”
3. Goal URL/Goal Name/Case Sensitivity.  All fairly self explanatory.  Insert the URL – or landing page – where your customer will complete the goal.  A thank you page for an email sign up or filling out a contact form.  For E-commerce sites, a checkout page for continuing to checkout or a receipt of payment for the actual sale.  The goal name should be specific – something other than “Goal 1″.  Case sensitivity is explained above.
4. Goal value is the dollar amount of what a single completed goal will mean to you.  For example, if you know that for every 10 people who fill out a contact form, 1 will do business with you; and the average person will spend $10,000 with you, then your goal is worth $1,000.  (NOTE: Be sure to leave the amount without $ sign; as in 1000, NOT $1000.)
5. If you would like to track your conversions through the steps your customers take to get there, use funnels.

Once GA starts collecting data, you can view it in the Goals section of your account.

Nicki Hicks
Happy Converting!

Search these days sometimes makes me feel like we’re all back in 3rd grade on the playground.  Managing our reps.  Hmm, maybe that was just my elementary school…

Nevertheless, all of these bailouts got me thinking about real life reputation management.  While all of these poor Fortune 500 car companies have to deal with reputation management on a large scale, it’s still just as important for small businesses.

Local Reputation

Local search obviously pertains more to businesses who differentiate geographically.  And as we all know, word of mouth can often make or break you – maybe even in search results.  Find an all-star within your staff to keep an eye on these:

• Local Search Reviews – Reviews in Google Maps or Yahoo! Local are relatively easy to manage.  Not only managing them, but also responding quickly and efficiently to customer reviews and ratings can make a difference – whether it’s just that one person, or your entire online customer base.
• Yelp - An example of a localized service provider customer review site.  (There are a bazillion – yes, that’s official jargon – of other industry-specific review sites out there other than Yelp.)  The same applies for these sites as far as managing your business reputation.

What are people saying about you?

• On your blog - If you have a blog, be sure to respond to comments (especially negative ones) – it can result in much more satisfied customers.
• Google Search + “sucks” - Something I like to do for fun.  Search for your company name and add “sucks” to the end.  “Microsoft sucks” is the ever popular example.  This should pull up any bad press or negative comments about your business.  Take steps to fix any problems from there.
• Twitter Search - If you use Twitter, the Search feature can be overwhelmingly helpful for businesses.
  Just recently, I was complaining that my Pandora radio station had played the same song four times in a matter of a few hours.  Within minutes of my tweet, a woman from Pandora direct messaged me kindly explaining that I could use the “Don’t play this song for a month” feature so this wouldn’t happen to me again.  It was a 15 second conversation, but I must say, I was incredibly impressed and have a whole new respect for Pandora (I would’ve highly recommended it even before this).
• Google Alerts – This feature allows you to choose which term to alert you on, what type of search (news, blogs, web, comprehensive, video, or groups), and how often (whether as-it-happens, once a day, or once a week); then sent to you via email.  You could be alerted every time someone searches for your business, or even that “your business + sucks” search.
• Digg, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc. - Like Yelp, there are a ton of more generalized (and mostly social) networks out there: tools to see what people are talking about in your industry.

Damage Control

So now what?  You’ve figured out what people are saying about you through the various channels I’ve outlined.  Hopefully it’s positive feedback, but let’s face it, there’s going to be some negative.  What do you do?

1. Respond appropriately to customer reviews and ratings.
   a.   Just listen.  It’s amazing the number of people who just need a listening ear to hear their complaint.  Empathize with and console them.
   b.  Offer something for their trouble.  A coupon for a percentage off, a free stay at your hotel.  Offer what you’re able to.
   c.  “It will not happen again.”  (Important: Only say this if you can actually follow through with that statement.  I am not liable for empty promises.)
2. Comment on blogs, whether your own or others.
3. Bad news stories or press releases about you?  (Think the Jet Blue fiasco almost two years ago.)  Write press releases of your own. Make sure they are properly optimized, so they rank higher than other (negative) releases.

Never underestimate a sincere apology and personal touch.  Truth be told, if a customer happened to have a bad experience with you, they may not ever buy your product or service again.  But, if you make the effort to “ease their pain”, they probably won’t storm off telling their friends you are the worst bakery or plumber or car dealership they’ve ever dealt with.  Instead, they might tell a different story, something that might go this way: “I had a bad experience with [so and so company], but you know what?  They emailed me [or better yet, called] and apologized and offered me [this] in return for my troubles.”

Think about how you would want a company to respond to your bad experience.  What would you want to happen?

Nicki Hicks
Manage A Good Rep