The Maine SEO Blog

Can search engines read PDF files and if so how well? This is a great question posed by one of our developers this morning at our staff meeting. So, guessing that others are asking the same question I thought I would create a post about it.

The quick answer is, Yes. All search engines can read PDF files. Therefore it’s important to optimize your PDF for the search engines.

How to Optimize your PDF for SEO -

1. First step is to make sure that you create your PDF in a text based program like Microsoft Word or Adobe Pagemaker. If you create your PDF in Photoshop, it is considered a large image and is not an actual readable PDF.
2. Optimize your title, header tags and descriptions. There are a few ways to do this.
   -  If you are working in Microsoft Word, use the H1, H2, H3 tags provided where necessary.
   -  Also, make sure that when you go into Adobe Acrobat you fill out the proper description fields. This means adding a title, subject and keywords into the appropriate content fields.
   -  Title your PDF with a keyword, for example it should be named keyword.pdf.
   -  And, lastly create alt text and captions for any images used in the document.
3. Don’t bury the PDF on your site. Make sure that you create a link to the PDF from a page on your site that is crawled often, like your homepage.

There has been a bit of discussion about how well a PDF will rank compared to html content. And, while we recommend html over a PDF, there have been cases where a PDF ranked for a certain search term quicker than the html version, however, eventually the HTML landed at the top.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
If only Google Bots were as Cute as that Dog!

A while back I wrote a post about some of my favorite free online graders.  And, as an update to that, I wanted to point out the recent change to Hubspot’s Website grader, being updated to Marketing Grader. In the blogpost announcing the launch of the new grader, Hubspot explained the reasoning behind the change. Saying “In 2012, marketing is about more than just your website. It’s about social, mobile, blogging, email marketing, lead nurturing, and analytics”, and I couldn’t agree more.

Like with any other grader, the marketing grader isn’t perfect. For instance it didn’t recognize the Twitter accounts associated with flyte, nor did it recognize the sharing buttons on our blog, as they are not a plugin but rather hard coded.

Overall I like Marketing Grader, it’s definitely more comprehensive than the original website grader, measuring over 30 aspects of your marketing and web efforts and creating a grade based on a scale from 1 – 100. The incorporation of social platforms, analytics and sales funnels will prove to be very useful.

Great Job Hubspot! A+!

Keyword research Notes from Keyword Research & Copywriting SMX East 2011 – Christine Churchill, President KeyRelevance Follow her at @keyrelevance

Keywords are important because people still type in phrases and terms to find things online.

Everyone wants to be #1 on Google, and it takes a lot of know how, keywords, links, social, etc. You can increase conversions by speaking the customer’s language. By using the keywords they are using you are speaking like your customers, so they feel like you get them. Also, try to find overlooked or new keywords and take advantage of longer tail phrases.

Below you will find notes from SMX East’s Keyword Presentation, it will cover where marketers get their keywords, how the cycle of finding your keywords works, important tools and how to use these for ideas on content creation and copywriting.

Where marketers Get Keywords:

• Site log files for converting keywords – Google Analytics
• Google Analytics for frequent words
• Internal site search
• Competitor sites
• Competitive intelligence tools
• Exploring long search phrases
• Social semantic mining

Cycle of keyword research

1. Brainstorming and discovery
2. Keyword expansion
3. Keyword evaluation

Brainstorm and Discovery phase:

• Brainstorming – no judging words at this stage. Goal is to cast your net widely and generate broad list.
• Keyword lists from within company
• Review company website and print collateral
• Press releases
• Often too much insider jargon
• May or may not be customer’s lingo
• Customers’ words are disconnected from marketing department, change keywords and traffic rises, if you are using the words your audience is using.

Other good places to look at what language your target audience is using:

• Conduct customer interviews
• Customer surveys and focus groups
• Talk to support of sales personnel who talk directly to customers
• Search twitter and blogs and social media
• Review discussion forums, user generated talk
• Online magazines or print
• Company and product reviews
• Online thesaurus

Competitors:

• Review their website and collateral for keywords
• Look at words they are buying in PPC
• What terms are they targeting in SEO?
• Can give you competitive insights and ideas on overlooked terms

Analytics:

• Captures “exact phrase” that searcher entered
• Provide rich source of keyword data, but only show what’s currently working
• Could reveal “untapped” keyword gems

Site search box

• Reveals keywords and expressions that visitors are actually using/wanting
• Gives insight into relative popularity
• Can follow visitors path and see if site converts
• Make sure you collect all info
• Can tie your site search into your analytics to see what people are searching for
• Can get inside mind of consumer when they are coming to your website

Why Use Tools for Keyword Research?

• Save $ / time
• Provide insight outside of your site
• Identifies keyword opportunities you might miss
• Offers popularity #s you can’t get from your own analytics
• Moves you beyond keyword assumptions
• Allows you to compare phrases

Free Tools:

• Google keyword tool
• Webmaster tools
• Insights
• Trends
• Content targeting
• Adcenter labs tools
• Microsofrt ascenter add in for excel

Paid Tools:

• Wordtracker
• Trellian
• Hitwise
• Wordstream
• Nichbot
• Comscore
• spyFU

Why pay? It’s usually a suite and you get a lot more then just a list of keywords. Looking at Different Tools: Google Keyword Tool

• Free and easy
• Provides keyword volume data from Google
• Finds synonyms
• Can export to excel
• You can log in to your Google account for more keywords and options including local trends
• If you log in you are going to get more keyword choices, more columns, more options
• Select “exact match” or “phrase match” when doing SEO research, broad makes large jumps in lateral thinking, comes up with some terms that aren’t as great
• Advanced options, allows you to choose country, language, mobile research (just added back in Dec) you will get diff numbers for laptops vs mobile devices
• Recently added column is Google Search Network – added as option but have to be logged in to see it, it’s goole and it’s partner sites, not just Google, so pulls in more data, #’s tend to be higher
• Can use words, phrase, url (competitor, page, etc)

Google Trends

•  Monitors trends
• Allows you to compare popular phrases – ex. Myspace and Facebook, you could use plural and reg form of a keyword and see what’s more popular
• Also can plug in website and look at stats
• Also visited and also searched for sections tell you that searchers that went to this website, also went to these other sites
• Hot trends – good for helping you come up with blog posts, articles, find what’s hot that day

Google Insights

• Trends on steroids
• Allows you to see and monitor trends, but allows you to see keywords related to the one you are looking at
• Last few years lots of changes in keywords because economy affects what people are saying and searching for
• Key relevance – can find that in states terms are more popular than in another – can be better to check out for regional or local search stuff
• Rising searches – very valuable for up and coming phrases, break out means there has been like a 500% increase, so great terms to use, since new and growing – a lot of them aren’t quite as competitive
• Monitors seasonality – this is good for mapping out key phrases for over the month, so great for blog posts, articles etc.

Google Contextual targeting tool

• Free tool
• Builds themed keyword lists
• Great for keyword expansion and lateral thinking
• Provides ideas for organizing and structuring your keyword lists
• Basically it’s textual wonder wheel – (wonder wheel cancelled in July, don’t know if it’s coming back)
• If you were a wonder wheel fan it’s the tool for you

Keyword Discovery

• Multiple databases
• Global, historical global, international, news, shoping, eBay
• Provides seasonal data and trends
• Includes suite of tools – misspellings, keyword density tool (uses as a double check, to see where different phrases were used on the site)

Wordtracker

• Data pulled from meta search engines
• Eliminates most skewing issues caused by bots
• Differentiates between singular and plural
• Offer free tool for trial
• Questions tool so you can see what’s being asked – create blog posts or articles

Wordstream

• Keyword tool, PPC management., Pay Per Click checker gives you feedback on your campaigns

Google Instant

• Shows results as you type, great suggestions for phrases and titles for blog posts and content

Soovle.com

• Kind of like Google instant
• Pulls keywords suggestions from several different sites and puts them in one place
• Helpful to see if you missed things during brainstorm

Ubersuggest

• Start typing in phrase and it will go through the alphabet, lists them all for you, keyword ideas etc.

Twitter Search

• Trends – gives you pulse of what’s on web and what’s hot
• Look through and do searches to find good blog post and content ideas
• Great for knowing in real time what’s going on
• Great for monitoring what others are saying about your products/services, which helps you find customer language

YouTube

• YouTube search suggests keywords, pulls from YT searches and titles
• Your results will be different than Google, as people use different words and phrases to search video
• Also look at promoted videos to see keywords suggested and used

Google Sets

• Google will come up with a couple sets to help with your list, and comes up with longer lists

AdCenter Labs Tools

• Search Funnels – gives insight into mind of the user, shows searches before and after a term you put it

Yahoo

• Good for trending info, their trending is going to be different than Google, usually heavier on the entertainment side
• Suggestion box is pretty good as well, some of their suggestions are actually embedded in the phrase rather than just at the beginning

Quintura

• Allows you to navigate by clouds
• The larger, bold words are the most popular
• good for brainstorming and broadening keyword buckets

Ask

• They will show you related searches, but will also do related questions, invaluable for coming up with content ideas for what’s fresh new and on top of peoples minds

Microsofts’ ad intelligence

• Excel plugin
• Provides related keywords
• Fast for building out lists
• Extracts keywords for URL
• Gives insights on seasonal “spiky” keywords
• Shows geographic and demographic info on keywords

Keyword Expansion Phase:Target variations of your keywords

• Comparison – best, compare, reviews
• Price – cheap, discount
• product descriptor – green, plus size, ;unique
• intended use – gift for grandmother, baptism
• product
• location
• action
• season
• abbreviations
• brand/vendor/manufacturer

Keyword “buckets”

• Group related keywords into lists of related terms
• Do a series of keyword research projects on a site, not one (can do one search for every area of a website, that are more specific) do a different series of research for each site – break it into pieces
• Develop a keyword matrix – url, main phrases,

Keyword permutationsTools for permutations – aaron wall, excel, concatenate tool

• Relevancy to site (meaning choosing the kw that best describes what the site offers, traffic alone isn’t the goal, you want targeted traffic)
• Keyword popularity (number of searches done in a period of time, popular phrases less relevant, more competitive, cars or homes ex, in most cases less popular phrases are better)
• Users intent (research vs purchase, stage in buying process, kw indicate where consumer is in the buying process) you want to match your content to satisfy the user’s intent when using the keyword – for instance review in the beginning, fast or quick in terms they want to find buy button, those landing pages that you tie with those keywords are going to be very important (80% of all searches on the web are non commercial)
• competition (who is raking for your keyword terms? Who has PPC ads? Search term parity – if you are trying to win something in SEO you have to do as much as the person that is currently ranking, how much are their bids, how optimized is the site, linkage info, anchor text etc., what keywords are optimized and where are they on page) Competitive tols – Hitwise, Comscore, SEOMOZ keyword tool difficulty, SEM Rush, performance – test keyword performance look at analytics

Content optimization:

• Think phrase not just single keyword, use matrix,
• Title tages best to optimize
• Title appears in first line of listing on SERP
• Spend extra time to create compelling titles that grab attention
• Include keywords
• Meta important bc snippit that gets ppl to click on your page, keywords and strong mrkting message – good description will get ppl to click on you even if you are lower on the page
• h tags
• Visible portion of page
• Al attribute
• Links and anchor text
• File names
• url

Images as content

• Optimize images by using kw description in file name, alt ext, caption etc.
• On page
• Anchor text huge
• Home page strongest, most targeted
• Internal page SEO – look at slides
• Talk about benefits not features – makes people more interested

3 Types of searchers:

1. navigational – type in your website
2. informational – enter questions
3. transactional – buying ones/subscribing ones, download

*note: no tool is 100% accurate, but it’s a good ballpark estimate Using all in title helps to see who is optimized for that particular subset

How many terms should you target a page? It’s subjective and need to look at competitors, and look at linkage data and where you are ranking. Look at your Page Rank, and it depends on that as well, long tails better, and then each page should have laser focus on one term. But, usually two or three phases max.

Does it matter where keywords are in page content? Yes. You want it early, prominent bold, header tag, linked, title, bulleted, links, etc. Sends signal to search engines that’s what the page is about.

The above is a very thorough list of tools and ways of finding keywords. Of course this can all seem a bit overwhelming, so I would recommend finding the tools that work best for you and sticking to 2 – 3 different sources.  Also, within most of the tools talked about above there are tips on how to use those for coming up with blog titles and content ideas. If you are ever having a hard time coming up with content these are great quick fixes to get the juices flowing.

What tools do you currently use or would you recommend? Are there any methods you are currently using that you don’t see mentioned above?  Share them with us in the comments

The following is a recap from a session at Search Marketing Expo (SMX) East. Follow the conference on Twitter. Follow the presenter – @mathewguiver

Google +still in infancy.

As the community grows the usage of +1 votes will increase.

Google+ is on a trajectory to surpass Twitter, LinkedIn and Myspace being second only to Facebook.

Google + and +1’s are intertwined.

Prediction 1: +1’s to Have More Impact on Average Position Than Quality Score

When you search for something and you are not logged into a Google account your search results will be different than when you are logged in.  For example if you search for Britney Spears products the results page shows the one he would choose as the 3rd result.  But, once logged in, since he has #1′d the result, it shows up number one.  This also works if a friend has #1′d the search result.

When click on it, while logged in, you will see a friend of yours that has recommended that page, Google has done research saying you are more likely to click on that page – lifting personalized results, could apply across the board and to sponsored results.

Prediction 2: The Value of a +1

If a +1 decreases your CPA, then it also increases your ROI.

When money talks, the big bosses listen.

Assign value to a +1 vote, because you get more click throughs when it is referred, which also has a higher conversion rate, more likely to take action.

Say one +1 vote increased CTR, and then it reduces your CPA, which gives you a higher return on Investment

Google +1 will be a great way to leverage paid search

Prediction 3: The End of The PPC Landing Page As We Know It

+1’s are shared between organic and sponsored listings…
start to see advertisers using pages that are designed for SEO and page search

Usually we create lots of pages, uncrawlable, because you don’t want to get knocked for dup pages, so that you can use landing pages for these PPC campaigns, instead, you can recommend within the ad, and then all related search results will always give you the page you shared, or had a +1 from a friend, in top results

So, now you are not paying again for a click, because the organic search will keep coming up,

Prediction 4: Bridging The Gap Between PPC and Social

Should see more overlap

Say you create an Ad for the term “Landing page Optimization”.  Then you create a landing page for the ad to send the person who clicks on the ad to.  It stops with that.  Instead, you should be creating Ads that send them to shareable content, like a blog post on “Landing Page Optimization” where they can +1 the blog post.  Now, that the post has a +1, it is going to show up as a top result on their SERP and potentially there friends SERP,  which leads to more clicks, traffic, possibly more +1′s and hopefully will also help it to start performing better in the organic results.

You will want to be driving traffic to Google plus profiles once businesses are on there.  Because then when anyone searches for that company their page is going to get that lift if you add them to a circle.

Prediction 5: Promoted +1’s
Google to monetize Google+ and +1’s

Google real time search used to incorporate promoted messages from twitter

Even confirmed splitting revenue with twitter

Google will do more outside the box, type ads for money, so Promoted +1s may make sense
Google+ to remain ad free?  Maybe companies offer incentive to +1 them

Prediction 6: Demographic Bidding for Sponsored Search Ads

In the future:
-  Race sex orientation
-  Religion
-  Interests
-  Income levels
-  Activity on profiles, who you block etc.

Prediction 7: Prediction Targeting

Google related, toolbar launched in august

Toolbar suggests sites to visit, based on social activity

Say you search something like a plane ticket, then the PPC that pops up, based on past behavior it might be a ticket sales item for a Britney spears concert in that place you are searching for on Google for tickets.

Be part of the future and stay ahead of the crowd.

Although Online graders, especially free ones are not completely accurate, they are still worth a peek. It can give you some good ideas on how to improve your sites and where you stand at present. So, without further ado here they are…

1. Facebook EdgeRank Checker: This one is probably my favorite so far just because it’s so new.  In my post, “Facebook EdgeRank: What Is It and Why Should you Care?”, I talk a little bit about what EdgeRank is and how the formula works.  This free online grader allows you to quickly check your page’s rank and gives you tips on how you can improve it.  Make sure to check often as recency is part of the formula, so your EdgeRank can change as your posts age.

2.Hubspot Website Grader According to Hubspot their “algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.”  The Flyte New Media website got a 97!

The website grader bases it’s formula on many different factors including whether or not your site has a blog, indexed web pages, SEO, MozRank, linking domains, Social Media Links, traffic and more.  Check it out for your score today!

3. Hubspot Blog Grader Hubspot Blog Grader gave The Maine SEO blog a score of 92! Which means we ranked ranked 54,207 out of the approximately 757,812 other blogs that they’ve graded.  Not bad.  The blog grader bases it’s grade off of many different factors, it looks at RSS subscriptions, email subscriptions, twitter  and Facebook links.  It also analyzes your blog posts focusing on frequency of posts, average post length, average number of links and images in posts, how many comments you received, tweets and retweets, Facebook likes and sharing abilities. Although it may not be 100% accurate it does give you a great idea of what you can do to make your blog more SEO and user friendly.

4. PageRank Checker Your page rank is a numeric value that Google associates with your page based on links to your page.  Every link in Google’s mind is a vote for your page and the more votes the more important or your web page is considered, therefore giving you a high ranking.  Also, the rank of or importance of the site that is referring you plays a role in how much weight that vote has.  This is important because Page Rank is one of the factors used to determine where you will rank is search results. This Page Rank checker allows you to find out where you stand simply by entering your URL.

5. Online Video Grader The Pixability Online Video Grader measures how you use video on your website, how you rank on Google and other video search engines, and how effective your YouTube channel is.

And, Twitter Grader is kinda fun, although not in my top 5.  What Twitter Grader is trying to measure is the power, reach and authority of a twitter account.  In other words, when you tweet, what kind of an impact does it have? It’s not in my top simply because it doesn’t really give you a great idea of what to do to improve, however it gives you a score and some tips, I just don’t feel they have much of an impact.

My advice would be to not get too hung up on different numbers and grades that you receive.  As I said before these graders are by no means 100% accurate but they are a fun tool to get an idea of some ways you can improve.  If you have any different graders that you use and would like to share let us know in the comments section.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Maine SEO

What people search for changes all the time. It changes because of everything from news and events to seasons, and even to the time of day. When you think about it, it’s intimidating to think about how you could possibly keep up with all of the change!

A blog is certainly the easiest and most efficient way to keep up with search trends – by creating keyword rich content that targets popular keywords of the moment. Creating articles, videos, and even images are also great ways to leverage hot keywords. But…where do you find these elusive keywords? Here are a few tools that can help.

Twitter Search

Twitter Search has a section at the bottom of the page for trending topics. You’ll most certainly get up-to-date (or to the minute) information about what the Twitterverse is talking about.

Google Trends

Likewise, Google provides a comprehensive list of what the nation is searching for on the homepage of Google Trends. (Search for topics in your industry to see a graph of trends over time related to that query.)

Google Insights

Google Insights provides “breakout” terms. Simply search for an industry keyword, then scroll through the trend graph, searches by region, and you’ll see a list of “top” and “rising” searches.

WordTracker Keyword Questions

By far one of my favorite tools for blogging inspiration, WordTracker Keyword Questions will give you a list of actual questions people have asked about your query – and how many times that question has been asked in the past year.

I’m sure there are a ton of other tools out there for keeping up with trending topics; but do you really need more than 4?

Nicki Hicks
What’s hot and what’s not

One of the first rules for keyword research is use more than one tool. Lucky for us, Google’s got a whole suite of tools – and better yet – they’re completely free!

1. Keyword Synonyms

I quite honestly don’t use the Google Synonym Tool as often as I probably should, but it will give you some great ideas when you start your keyword research.

2. Google Insights and 3. Google Trends

Google Insights will give you a good idea of what is popular right now (including similar “hot” keywords and phrases); while Google Trends gives a better indicator of how a keyword performs over time (Google has data as far back as 2004).

4. Google Analytics

You didn’t realize your Analytics could give you insight to what people are searching for?! Sure! Look no further than the keyword section. The bottom of the list will more than likely be rich with long tail searches. Maybe you could do a better job optimizing for those keywords, or maybe they’ll give you ideas for even more keyword research.

Another great place to look for keyword inspiration in Analytics is within your site search keywords. What were people looking for that they couldn’t find on their own? You might find some opportunity there.

5. Search-based Keyword Tool

Google’s Search-based Keyword Tool is based on AdWords bidding prices and competition, but you can get a great idea of search volume using it. It’s important to remember that this tool uses keywords in conjunction with existing websites. (So, if you don’t have a website yet, pop in one of your competitors’ sites!)

6. Google AdWords Keyword Tool

To date, Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool has been one of my favorite research tools. Again, based on AdWords competition, you’ll get the added benefit of global and local monthly search volume statistics.

7. (The New) AdWords Keyword Tool

I couldn’t be more excited for this new addition to the keyword research toolbox from Google: the new AdWords Keyword Tool. That much more robust, this tool adds a new column: local search trends. Even in a few short days of using it, I’ve found that, while you have to sort through the irrelevant keywords a bit more, you’ll get a ton of helpful synonyms and related search terms.

8. Google Sets

Ironically, I saw that Kasi Gajtkowski from Hall Web Services just put up a new blogpost about Google Sets – a new keyword research tool from Google. This tool will give you more loosely related (but still relevant) keywords related to the search terms you enter. That way, you’ll really be able to expand your keyword research and get some ideas you’d never thought of!

9. Google Suggest

While it’s not traditionally a keyword research tool, Google Suggest is an out-of-the-box way to get keyword ideas.

With so many free tools to choose from, you’re bound to be a keyword pro in no time. Which is your favorite to use?

Nicki Hicks
Google Tool Savant

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

It’s not specifically for AdWords users, and it gives you probably the most accurate data for Google keyword queries and competition, as well as related keywords and phrases.

Yahoo Site Explorer

To date, Yahoo’s Site Explorer gives the most accurate picture of what websites are linking to yours.

Since Yahoo will soon begin incorporating Bing’s search results, Yahoo Site Explorer may not exist for much longer; so here are two other sources that work just as well (and arguably even better):

More recently, I’ve discovered another great site for tracking incoming links: Majestic SEO. Without logging in, you can check one website’s backlinks. By subscribing (for free), you can compare up to five different domains against one another.

This week, SEOmoz launched their brand new Open Site Explorer, what could be the eventual replacement to Yahoo Site Explorer. Those with PRO membership will have unlimited access, and for the next 24 hours, SEOmoz is offering a free trial for everyone!

Google Analytics

I talk about Analytics relentlessly, but the thing is…you’re not going to get a better Analytics system for free. And you need Analytics, so the choice is logical.

There are thousands of tools out there – from tools for checking PageRank, to checking cache dates, to checking keyword density. They’re all great. Like I said, these are just the three you can’t live without.

Nicki Hicks
Hey – these tools are all search engine-owned!

SEOQuake

I’ve been using the SEOQuake toolbar for a while now. It’s a gem for any search geek: the ability to quickly see statistics in the search results, from PageRank to indexed pages in Google v. Bing, from incoming links to Alexa rank.

You can also dig a little deeper by getting more information about the site you’re currently visiting; which is a nice one-stop shop for getting any of your basic need-to-know information for client statistics. Here’s a screen capture of what that looks like:

Aside from the SEOQuake Toolbar, the SEOQuake Toolbar also has two products for statistics: SEOPivot and SemRush.

SEOPivot

SEOPivot is essentially designed to show you the potential of ranking for certain keywords for particular pages on your website. For example, a post I did on GetListed.org and Local Search currently ranks #152 for “live local search”, a search term with a potential volume of 1,362 visitors if the post were ranking #1.

SEOPivot reminds me a lot of Google Webmaster Tools’ top search queries. Here are Maine SEO’s top 10 queries in Webmaster Tools:

Very similar, but I will say that SEOPivot offers two added benefits above and beyond Webmaster Tools’ top search queries.

1. The potential traffic you could receive if you were #1. While it isn’t a perfect number, it is interesting if nothing else.
2. More importantly, the average search volume. How many people are searching for this keyword a month? (In other words, is it even worth trying to optimize for?

All in all, SEOPivot will give you some interesting information about where your pages could rank – and you can query 10 websites a day for free, with 5 keywords per site. Want more than that? You’ll have to pay a little.

SemRush

The other SEOQuake tool, SemRush, gives a little more insight. Like SEOPivot, you are still served up keywords from your site, where they currently rank, search volume, and the URL. The benefit here comes in the form of some really great AdWords data, should you be using it, including CPC and competition.

Like SEOPivot, you can get several free reports, but have to pay if you want more than that.

All in all…

SEOQuake remains my favorite, although if you want some interesting statistics about where some of your keywords stand (sometimes keywords you never even thought to rank for), SEOPivot and/or SemRush are for you!

Nicki Hicks
SEO Tool Afficiando

As a rule of thumb, I don’t pay attention to Alexa rankings. Primarily, it’s because we deal with mostly small business, so their rankings aren’t going to land them under the 100,000 range. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

What does the Alexa ranking mean? Alexa measures your traffic (and popularity) by way of their toolbar (not unlike Keyword Discovery), and measures your site accordingly. The lower the number, the better. To give some perspective, the Maine SEO blog’s Alexa ranking is 1,051,645. Flyte has an Alexa rank of 140,350; CNN’s is 52, Google’s is 1.

Alexa also provides some Google Analytics-esque statistics which aren’t nearly as accurate, including: pageviews, bounce %, time on site, and incoming links.

I don’t suggest using Alexa because you can get more relevant statistics using tools like Google Analytics and Yahoo Site Explorer.

However, Alexa can be helpful if you’re comparing several large websites. Alexa makes it easy to compare popular websites to gain some quick insight on their differences:

And if you absolutely insist on using it…

• Remember that, like most search stat tools, these numbers are relative
• Realize that you can get far more accurate statistics using your Analytics
• Recognize Alexa rank is not unlike PageRank: where it’s easy to become too focused on where you are today compared to yesterday

Nicki Hicks
SEO Stat Scrutinizer – try saying that five times fast