Keep reading to find out.

A bit of history

In an interview with Wired Magazine, Udi Manber, Google’s head of search, said that Google will make as many as 550 changes to its search algorithm this year. One of the bigger changes happened this past winter in what has been called the Panda or Farmer update.

According to a report by Sistrix.com, within days of the update, a number of very large websites saw their Google rankings take a drastic drop. Sites such as Ezinearticles.com and Suite101.com lost 90% or more of their visibility on Google.

This Sistrix table shows the domain and the percentage loss since Google's change.

Although a 90% drop in visibility may seem extreme, it was a direct result of Google’s attempts to weed out content farms (websites with high-volume, low-quality content) and those trying to game the system. In the process, a number of unsuspecting websites got caught in the fray.

For the average small business owner, stories like this can be concerning. It’s hard enough to move to the top of the Google search rankings, let alone keep up with the constantly evolving magic that makes Google work.

However, for those looking to build quality websites that achieve high Google search results, nothing has really changed. As always, the key is to focus on publishing high-quality content that readers will want to share.

Here are 7 tips to help your business move to the top of the Google search rankings.

#1: It’s all about the user

It’s important to remember that the reason for the continually changing algorithms and updates is that Google has one objective—to provide the highest quality, most relevant search results possible. If they fail to do so, competitors such as Bing and Facebook are nipping at their heels ready to take up the slack.

Google is not out to penalize websites or hurt website owners. They want to ensure that users find the information they seek on the first try.

When it comes to search engine rankings and improving SEO, start by looking at the site from the perspective of the user searching Google. Does your site provide the best, most relevant information for a given search term and if not, what can you do to fix it?

Google’s Amit Singhal, head of Google’s core ranking team, provided 23 questions to consider when evaluating web content. These are some of the same questions that Google is using to test algorithms and evaluate websites using third-party beta testers. The questions provide an excellent insight into Google’s perspective and a tool to analyze your website from the user’s point of view.

#2: Content: Focus on quality over quantity

In an earlier post I wrote on how to increase your Google ranking, I talked about using blogs to increase the number of pages indexed in Google. And while it still holds true that more pages indexed for a given search term gives you a better chance of achieving a high Google rank, it isn’t enough just to publish text optimized for keywords. The quality of the content is now a factor.

Using the list of 23 questions will help you assess the quality of your content.

Since the Panda update, Google has attempted to screen out those publishing high-volume, low-quality content. Now, in the eyes of Google, it’s better to have fewer high-quality pages then lots of low-quality pages.

Blogging is still one of the best ways to move up the search engine rankings as it is a good way to add high-quality information to a website. However, web pages or blog posts offering little of value can now negatively impact a website. Removing these pages might actually help a website move up the rankings or recover from a drop in ranking.

#3: Links: Focus on quality over quantity

Incoming links have always looked good in the eyes of Google. As a result, one way to move a site up the search engine rankings was to generate a high number of incoming links all pointing to a given web page.

As Google places higher and higher value on the quality of the content, this tactic is not as effective, and can even harm a website’s ranking if overdone.

For the small business website owner, this should come as good news. Instead of generating 50 articles with subpar content, website owners can now focus on creating fewer high-quality articles or incoming links, as Google is no longer placing much value in links from article distribution sites such as Ezine.com.

In another article on ways to improve your blog SEO with inbound links, I suggested that press releases were a good way to generate incoming links because distribution services often generated back-links as articles were placed on various press release syndication websites. This link-building strategy has also changed post-Panda update, as these links are not as highly valued as they once were. However, a well-written press release can still be very effective when picked up and reported by a journalist or major publication.

Focus on getting high-quality links from high-quality websites. Guest posting is still an excellent way to generate high-quality incoming links. If possible, try to wrap links in important keywords. For example, as a content marketing copywriter, a link around “content marketing copywriter” would be more effective than a link wrapped around my name.

#4: Make the most of social media, social sharing and social search

It’s hard to tell exactly how much impact Twitter and Facebook have on Google search results, but at the very least we know that Google is providing real-time social sharing in the search results.

Google’s addition of the Google +1 button and the ability of Google users to block sites take this a step further. Although it’s still unclear how Google is using the +1 button in their algorithms, they have stated publicly that users blocking a site can have a negative impact on returns. This again demonstrates the importance of high-quality content.

If you don't have the +1 button but want to try it out, you can enroll in Google's experiment.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAyUNI3_V2c

#5: Let the search engines know you’re there

Once you’ve published high-quality content, it’s important to tell Google about the content and make it easy for users to find. This means that meta titles and descriptions should closely match the content on the page.

Keyword stuffing and intentionally filling meta descriptions with keywords that don’t match the page in an attempt to deceive will only hurt your search engine results. The closer the match, the better.

It’s also important to make the most of the SERP, the short paragraph showing in the Google search returns. Use this space to provide a clear description of the content and encourage users to click through to your site.

Be sure your meta description matches the post and encourages users to click through. This is what shows in the Search Engine Results Page or SERP.

#6: The truth behind duplicate content

It’s not that Google penalizes websites for duplicate content; Google just doesn’t show it in the search results. Remember what I said in the beginning about providing the best possible search returns. When it comes to duplicate content, that’s all Google is doing.

Instead of showing 20 pages with the same content, Google tries to present the most relevant and original content and omit the rest. Users can still view omitted search returns, they just need to make an effort and most won’t.

This only becomes a problem if you’re using canned content or directly publishing RSS feeds from other websites. Content of this sort might be seen as low-quality and result in lower Google returns. Hopefully the days of stolen web content and RSS scrapers will soon be a thing of the past.

#7: Don’t overdo the advertising

Too much advertising can also result in lower Google rankings. This again is a result of Google’s attempts to improve search results for the user. Google tends to equate an overabundance of advertising to lower-quality or “spam” websites.

Excessive advertising can also hurt your Google returns. Note how the actual content on this site isn't even visible above the fold. This website is also "scraping" content from Social Media Examiner which can also hurt search engine ranking.

Be sure that advertising does not interfere with the content on the page. This is especially important with advertising above the fold and within the text.

Google is constantly evolving, but the fundamentals of SEO will always remain the same. High-quality content that people want to share will always do well in the eyes of Google. Search Engine Land has put together a free guide that will help you gain traffic from search engines such as Google and Bing.

"Search Engine Land has created a Periodic Table of 'SEO Ranking Factors.' Notice the importance placed on content.

What do you think? What other ideas or suggestions do you have? Leave your comments in the box below.

Why is blogging so important to your search engine visibility? Because search engines serve up web pages—not websites—when people ask a question. And here’s the important part:

Every blog post is a new web page and every web page is another opportunity to rank well for another search term.

More groundbreaking than E=mc2!

In other words, every time you blog on a subject you want to rank well for, you create another opportunity for your best prospects to find you.

What You Need to Get Started

There are three things required for you to succeed in your business blogging:

• Use the right blogging platform. While I don’t believe that you can’t succeed using platforms such as Joomla, Drupal or TypePad, my recommendation for blogging is WordPress. It’s powerful, easy to learn and has plenty of SEO plugins that increase your chances of topping the search engine results.
• Own your domain. Don’t run a business blog from an address like mycompany.typepad.com or mycompany.wordpress.com. When you do that, you’re just building up trust and inbound links to someone else’s property. You want to blog from your own property, such as mycompany.com/blog or mycompanyblog.com. This is also critical in case you ever decide to move to another blogging platform as it allows you to retain all the inbound links you’ve gathered over the years.
• Be committed. Blogging success doesn’t happen overnight; it’s not like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising where you can immediately appear on the first page of Google. However, it also lasts a lot longer. PPC ends the day you stop paying, while my company has blog posts written years ago that still deliver hundreds of new leads each month. That’s great ROI!

Posts from as far back as 2006 still drive thousands of new visitors each month to our company blog.

What Affects Your Search Engine Ranking?

All search engines have a unique algorithm for determining how relevant your blog post is to a given query. To oversimplify this process, it comes down to two main factors:

• On-page optimization: how the words in your post match up with the search that was just done, and
• Off-page optimization: how many quality inbound links you have (links from other websites, blogs, directories, etc. to your blog post)

How to Improve Your On-Page Optimization

If you want to create content that’s relevant to your business, answers your prospects’ questions and helps you rank higher, there’s a simple three-step process to help you get there:

1.     Brainstorm your keyword phrases. Whether you do this by yourself, include co-workers or survey your current clients, you should start by brainstorming as many keyword phrases—the words you want to rank well for or you believe your prospects are searching for—as you can.

2.     Test your beliefs. Too often we think we know what our prospects are searching for, but we’re off the mark. If you’re blogging about divorce lawyers and everyone out there is searching for how to save my marriage, you’re not helping anyone.

You’ll want to use keyword analysis tools like Raven Tools, Keyword Discovery or Google Adwords Keyword Tool to help you determine what people are searching.

All of these tools work in a similar fashion: they determine how many people are searching for your phrases, and how much competition you have for each phrase. You want to first target the phrases that have good search volume, but maybe don’t have as much competition.

Bacon queries at Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

The keyword phrases most likely to bring home the bacon for your business. #groan

3.     Start blogging! Running sneakers gathering dust in your closet don’t make you fit, and keywords you’re not using won’t get you good rankings. Start creating new blog posts of 300–700 words 2–3 times a week.

Blogging for Search Engine Success

While knowing what keywords to target is half the battle, here are a few tips to maximize your results:

• Start your post title with your best keywords. Page titles are the most important variable in how well you’ll rank. Search engines give more weight to the first three or four words in your title, so you’ll get better results from titling your post Super Bowl Commercial Reviews: The Best and Worst Ads, as opposed to What I Thought of Last Night’s Super Bowl Ads.
• Use your keyword phrase through the body of the post. Try to use your phrase in the first sentence or two, and then a couple of more times in the post. Put it in your meta-description, the meta-tags, the image alt-tags, the post tags and anywhere else that seems appropriate.
• Link to appropriate pages on your website. If you’re blogging about the boots some B-list celebrity wore on some reality show last night, make sure you link the boot name to the page on your website where they can buy those boots. If you’re blogging about how to retain employees, make sure you link “employee recognition” to your page on employee reward programs. This will help increase the search visibility of your web pages; just make sure you link your keywords, not “click here” or “learn more.”

E-commerce sites can benefit from blogging around their customers' interests.

SEO Tools and Plugins

Here are a few tools to help you create posts that will rank well and attract qualified clients to your blog:

Keyword Questions: Struggling with blogger’s block? This tool from WordTracker returns popular search engine queries based on your keywords.

Each result is another post for your blog.

All In One SEO Pack: One of many plugins that improve your blog’s optimization, this is the one I use on my own web marketing blog. This plugin allows you to easily add unique meta-descriptions, meta-tags and titles to each post, improve the page title format and reduce the chances that the search engines will get confused by duplicate content on your blog.

Use SEO plugins to improve your titles and meta-information.

Scribe SEO: Scribe is a plugin for WordPress that requires a monthly fee. Once installed, you can run keyword analysis on each post from directly within the admin. Scribe will also score your blog post before you post it, and suggest improvements.

Scribe shows you where you can improve.

It will also suggest other blog posts and social media resources that may be sources of inbound links to your post.

Off-Page Optimization

As mentioned earlier, the other half of the search engine equation is inbound links: links from other web pages to your blog posts.

Search engines see inbound links as “votes of confidence.” The more quality incoming links, the more confidence that the search engines have that you’re providing a valuable resource to their searchers.

Not all inbound links are created equal, however. There are a number of variables that affect how important each link is.

• The linking site: sites deemed trustworthy will provide more value than new or untrustworthy sites.
• The number of links on the referring page: each page has a limited amount of “link juice” to pass on. If you cut a pie into four pieces, everyone gets a good-sized piece of pie. If you cut that pie into four hundred pieces, everyone goes home hungry.
• The context of the linking page: If you’re blogging about burritos, a link from a taco blog will give you a bigger boost than one from a bicycle blog, all other things being equal.
• The anchor text: the words in the link are critical.

Admittedly, you often won’t have any control over these variables, but Google and Bing take them into consideration. Which begs the question…

How Do You Get More Incoming Links?

Ah, I thought you’d never ask. The obvious—and aggravating—answer is create quality content that’s valuable to your audience. If people find your content valuable, they’ll share it and link to it.

That being said, here are some techniques for getting more inbound links:

• Numbered lists: People love numbered lists. We don’t have time to master any new skills here, but you can boil it down to 6 Tips for Starting an Online Community, 21 Ways Non-Profits Can Leverage Social Media, or 50 Creative Uses of QR Codes in Marketing & Communications.
• How-to articles: Most of us use the search engines because we don’t know how to accomplish some goal or task. Get even more links by embedding a video in your how-to post.

Videos make how-to posts even more link-worthy.

• Guest blog: Blog at a related blog—bonus points if it’s more well-read and influential than your own! From your guest post you can create keyword-rich links to your blog or website. If you’re not sure where to start your guest blogging, check out My Blog Guest, a marketplace for guest blogging.

In conclusion:

• Perform a keyword analysis to know which keywords will drive qualified traffic to your site.
• Put your keywords in your titles, content and throughout your post.
• Create content that will encourage people to link to your blog.

This post just skimmed the surface of what you can do to improve your search engine visibility and drive more qualified traffic to your blog. What techniques and successes have you had with your blog and search engines? Please share your stories in the comments box below!

This article will show you how to easily optimize your blog for search engines.

Let’s be clear on few points before we begin. When search engine optimization (SEO) is done the wrong way:

• It’s a spammy attempt to manipulate the search-engine traffic.
• It’s SEO experts selling a guaranteed top-10 placement.

When SEO is done the right way, it’s NOT guaranteed and it’s NOT immediate, but it is ongoing.

Now let’s cover the basics.

What’s your blog about? The topic you cover will, to a large degree, dictate your placement. If you said “real estate” or “automobile” or “website hosting” or “SEO,” you will have a LOT of competition. You could help things a bit by focusing on YOUR geographical area (as in “real estate in Pasadena, CA,” for example).

But remember, some topics are extremely competitive and therefore more difficult to crack, making it on the first, second or third page of the relevant search. This part is paramount because most Google sleuths don’t make it past the second page.

On the other hand, if your topic is obscure and very specific, PLUS the space is not densely populated with competition, you can conceivably end up as a top search result for that topic. This is assuming that you’ve implemented sound SEO practices. And that’s what this article is about.

Who are you targeting? Who is your audience?

Having a crystal-clear understanding of who your audience is and what THEY’RE searching for helps you narrow your focus and increase your chances of having an effective SEO campaign.

If all this sounds too complicated, you could just pay someone to do it. If you do decide to outsource SEO, you should set aside a minimum of $3,000 to $5,000 monthly for a dedicated SEO professional.

Now that you know the cost, are you a little more motivated to learn how to do it yourself? I would encourage you to ask around and get some quotes. Here is what you would be paying for:

A good SEO person will have varying degrees of proficiency in:

• CSS
• Data analysis
• Blogging
• HTML
• Copywriting
• Link-building
• Search engine algorithms

Those are the skill sets off the top of my head.

As I see it, you have three options:

1. Hire a dedicated SEO person/team.

2. Hire a part-time SEO expert who can dedicate a portion of his or her time to your page rank. This might be all that’s needed for most small- to medium-sized businesses. (Note: Page rank is a non-geeky way of saying “Google search-engine algorithm.”)

3. Learn the basics yourself. The basics will get you pretty far.

In this article I’ll focus on the last one—learn the basics yourself. So how do you do this? Well, you’ve come to the right place. An important part of any SEO strategy will be keyword discovery and implementation. This article will focus on those two factors.

Harvesting and Piggybacking

I recommend a three-step process in your keyword discovery process.

#1: Get into their heads.

A great place to start understanding what keywords are desirable is to find out what keywords are used by your comps (comps is a real estate term for comparable properties).

We do this by first inspecting what keywords are used on your comp’s web page.

In your browser, usually under “view,” you can “view source” of the webpage. Here’s how:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=erjqTugMviI

Takeaway lessons from the video:

• There will be a LOT of gibberish in there. But all we’re looking for are “meta tagged keywords.”
• Manual research allows you to get into your comps’ heads.
• View several pages to get a good sense of what your comps are trying to rank for.
• Repeat the process for another 3-4 comps.

#2: Piggybacking: Leverage Automation and Your Comps’ Research.

Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and type in a word or phrase that is relevant to your business.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG-42LmFKNE

Takeaway lessons from the video:

• Google Keyword Tool will return related phrases, often many that you didn’t even think of.
• You can export these results, view monthly search numbers and sort phrases by popularity.

After you’ve performed this on your top five comps, collected the data and exported your finding into a CSV file, you’ll have a pretty good idea of:

• What people are searching for (it’s almost never what you think it is)
• What your comps are indexed for
• Where you fit in

Now that you’ve harvested keyword information and effectively piggybacked on your comps’ research, you should narrow your list down to a manageable number (100 or so keywords).

The keywords that YOU are going to use should reside at the intersection of:

• Most relevant to you/your post/blog/website
• Most highly searched for
• Least used by your comps

Note: While recommendation #2 is a good guideline, do keep in mind that less often searched-for phrases tend to have higher conversion rates.

#3: Implement: Apply What You Learned.

It’s time to install and learn how to use a nifty little WordPress plugin called All in One SEO to quickly, easily and effectively utilize the information gathered during the harvesting and piggybacking research phase. If you’re not running a self-hosted WordPress website, this is not for you.

Download and install All in One SEO plugin. Click on the video for a little bit of show-and-tell.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5RhfJJWHK8

Takeaway lessons from the video:

• WordPress makes it very easy to add plugins; however, you shouldn’t install any plugins that haven’t been tested. Here are instructions on how to set up a WordPress sandbox on your laptop.
• Some plugins (like All in One SEO) are must-haves. Others should be installed only if absolutely necessary.
• All in One SEO will have to be configured globally, on per-post and per-page basis.

All in One SEO Pack Configuration—Global Settings

Plugin status:

You can enable it or disable it.

Home Title:

If left blank it will default to whatever you configured under Settings/General/Site Title in WordPress. However, don’t leave it blank.

Note: According to SEOMoz.org’s SEO ranking factors survey, page titles are one of the most important factors.

Entering a bad or blank title is NOT advisable.

Home Description:

While description ranks lower on the page rank scale, it’s paramount to have it filled out appropriately. Search engines will display the description immediately underneath your web page. There it’s best to have a human-friendly call-to-action type of message.

Check out how Barnes & Noble have a human-friendly call-to-action message.

Home Keywords (comma separated):

What are the main topics covered on your site? That’s what should be entered here in the order of relevance. For example “blogging, marketing, WordPress, writing,” and so on…

Note: Home keywords were abused in the early days of SEO (stuffed with popular but irrelevant search words), which resulted in search engines deprecating their importance.

Don’t overstuff. Spend a few minutes configuring and it might help. It certainly can’t hurt.

Canonical URLs:

Enabled by default and should be left as such. This helps with duplicate content, which is a HUGE no-no. If you’re not familiar with canonical URLs, and would like to be, read this Google webmaster blog post.

Rewrite Titles:

This controls the title-related settings underneath. We’re not going to cover them individually. “Title” is what you see in your browser’s window title bar. If set, all page, post, category, search and archive page titles get rewritten.

Why would you want to do this?

The default title generation setting for WordPress is extremely anti-SEO. Depending on your version of WordPress, the default structure will most likely look like this:

Category >> Blog Name >> Post Title

This is suboptimal.

You should allow the SEO plugin to rewrite it to something more SEO-friendly, for example:

Post Title >> Blog Name

Note: This is all about specificity. The post title is likely to have specific keywords related to the post itself. Therefore it should be the first thing a search engine “sees.”

WordPress, if configured correctly, can now assign an SEO-friendly name to your blog post (see below) without the help of All in One SEO.

Description Format:

Four available options, leave the default as is. It will grab the description from whatever is set at the post level.

404 Title Format:

The box sets the page title for your “page not found” error page. The default is “Nothing found for %request_words%”. Leave as is.

Paged Format:

This string gets appended/prepended to titles when they are for paged index pages (like home or archive pages). Leave it alone.

SEO for Custom Post Types:

WordPress version 3.0 introduced the ability to create your own custom post types in addition to the default two (post and page).

I really haven’t used this, so I can’t offer much in terms of practical advice. If you would like to learn more about it, visit WordPress.org Custom Post Types pages.

Custom Post Types for SEO Column Support:

Related to above, disabled by default. Leave it alone.

Use Categories for Meta Keywords:

This is for those bloggers who are hyper-strategic about their category names. If you’re like most of us, you’ll leave this one alone and add your keywords manually for each post.

Use Tags for Meta Keywords:

Checked by default, it causes the tags you set for a given post to be used as the meta keywords for that post. What this basically means is that your tags and your keywords don’t have to be entered in both places. In fact, if you enter the same word in both the Tag and the Keyword field, you might get dinged by Google.

Dynamically Generate Keywords for Posts Page:

Related to the third type of post we mentioned above. Irrelevant unless you’re using custom posts. Leave it alone.

Use No Index for Categories and (Tag) Archives:

This is kind of a non-issue especially if “Canonical URL” is configured. It tells Google NOT to crawl duplicate content.

Autogenerate Descriptions:

This is very cool if you can squeeze all your relevant keywords within the first 150 characters of the article.

Capitalize Category Titles:

Other than visual appeal I know of no special benefit of doing this. Google doesn’t care if your titles are uppercase or lowercase but it looks pretty.

Exclude Pages:

Enter any comma-separated pages here to be excluded by All in One SEO Pack.

This is helpful when using plugins that generate their own non-WordPress dynamic pages. Forums are a good example. You may decide to manage the way your forum gets “indexed” using forum-specific tools.

Additional (Post, Page, Home) Headers:

These are not required for basic SEO practices. They’re used with various webmaster tools but otherwise uninteresting.

Log Important Events:

This is for developers only. Once the global settings are all done, every time you write a new post, you’ll have to configure All in One SEO tool on per-post basis. No worries though, this one is quick and painless.

All in One SEO Pack Configuration—Post Settings

All in One SEO will place itself on the bottom of your WordPress new post configuration.

Title:

By default, the title will be generated based on your setting under Settings >> Permalinks. You should configure /%postname% under “Custom Structure,” which will generate the appropriate post title automatically.

If, however, you decide to enter a custom title here, it will take precedence over any other. Why would you want to do this? Post title ranks high on Google’s “importance” scale and stuffing your title with keywords might better your chances.

Description (Meta):

You have 160 characters to describe your post for search engine meta analysis. Use them wisely. Remember our Barnes & Noble example? This should be a human-friendly call to action. Include most relevant words first.

Keywords (Meta):

Put your most important keywords (search phrases) up front. Your hard work during keyword harvesting phase pays off right here.

Note:

Your keywords should be relevantly spread across the main body of the article, tags, meta description, keywords, etc.

Enable/disable on per-post basis:

Self-explanatory I hope. Use it in case you want to hide from Google.

All in One SEO Pack Configuration—Page Settings

Page Settings has a few more options than Post Settings. Let's work through them.

Title, Description and Keywords and Enable/Disable are the same as before.

The new settings are:

Title Attribute:

Has no or minimal effect on ranking. It’s basically a tool tip when you hover over a link.

Menu Label:

This in effect renames your page without renaming the URL.

Keyword research and configuration are some of the most important aspects of a well-run SEO campaign. In fact, they’re among the top most important things you can do.

If you had to choose your top three most important SEO strategies, what would they be? Leave your comments in the box below.

In an earlier post I talked about the need to fully optimize your website and blog posts for search engines.

However, content optimization will only take you so far. For a website to really take off in the search engine rankings, it needs to generate incoming links from relevant and reputable websites. And you have little control of incoming links.

To increase the likelihood of obtaining high-quality incoming links, here are seven things you can do:

#1: Create Content Others Will Want to Share

All search engine optimization (SEO) starts with content. The first step to generating incoming links is to create content that others will want to share. Blog posts that solve problems, provide a valuable resource, entertain, demonstrate innovation or even create controversy can all generate incoming links. Average content won’t cut it. It needs to be outstanding.

Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other social media sites are driven by the desire to share. One of the quickest ways to build social media credibility is to share outstanding blog posts, videos or other online content. When you create content that will give Twitter users or bloggers credibility just by sharing it, you’re going to generate valuable incoming links.

Don’t forget to make your content easy to share by including TweetMeme, Digg, Facebook or other buttons that are easy to find and use.

#2: Distribute Online Press Releases

Press releases are a great way to generate incoming links. A good press release can be directly published by any of a number of highly trafficked news organizations. Again, the key is to provide content that is of value to others.

When writing a press release, think like a reporter. What “news” is important to the reporter’s readers? Write it as if you were the reporter writing a story. Make the reporter’s or editor’s job easy and your press release has a much better chance of getting published.

One of the big advantages of online press releases is that you can control the back links to your site. Linking keywords in your press release to relevant pages on your website or blog can result in valuable incoming links.

Even the link coming from the press release site can be beneficial as most PR distribution sites have a high Google page rank. The key is to link from the body text of the press release to pages deep within your site such as a related blog post (deep linking). For example, a link to an article on your website providing tips for writing press releases wrapped around appropriate keywords (as opposed to a link to your home page) is a deep link.

Although there are a number of free press release sites available, paid distribution sites such as PRNewswire.com are often monitored by reporters and feed directly to Yahoo! News and other large websites. If you have the resources, a good press release on a premium distribution site can quickly pay for itself.

Distribution sites such as PR Newswire, Business Wire, PrimeZone or Market Wire distribute press releases to Yahoo! News and others.

#3: Write Guest Posts

Writing guest posts (like I’m doing here) on highly ranked, highly trafficked websites can also generate powerful incoming links.

Writers often will offer to write free posts in exchange for a link back to their own website. If the publisher will allow it, a link or two in the body of the post anchored to related keywords (deep links) can be even more valuable than the link in an author bio. Don’t believe me? How many of you clicked on the “tips for writing press releases” link above?

If you’re a good writer and have something to say, landing a guest spot isn’t all that difficult. The key thing is to pitch the website owner (or appropriate editor) an article that will be of value to his or her readers. Pitch the idea, not the entire article. Prior relationships don’t hurt either. If there’s a blog you’d like to write for, constructive comments and active participation can go a long way.

Remember, many blogs are run by individuals or small operations and creating daily content can be a lot of work. A good blog post by a guest writer can be beneficial to both the blog and the writer.

#4: Link to Others

Don’t be afraid to link to other blogs or publications. Linking to content of value not only provides a service for your readers but the incoming link will show up in the other blog’s analytics. Many blogs even display incoming links along with the comments. These links are one way to direct other bloggers back to your site. If they see something they like, they might return the favor.

Google also likes to see outgoing links to relevant and reputable websites.

#5: Share Content With Relevant Websites

Look for websites and blogs that offer content that’s complimentary to yours and let them know you’re there. For example, a lawyer who specializes in waterfront issues and riparian rights might share an article with a realtor who specializes in waterfront homes.

This can be as simple as an email letting the blogger know you enjoy his blog and a link to an article of interest to his readers. If you can directly tie it into something the blogger is currently writing about, even better.

In the old days, it used to be common to ask for a link exchange. Now, these link exchanges can come across as spammy—especially to the owner of a website with a high Google ranking. You’ll get much further with content that is highly relevant to the blogger.

#6: Create a Link Network

This is a tip that can do wonders for a group of topically related bloggers. About five years ago, I started blogging about my favorite college football team (and my alma mater). At some point, a number of bloggers in the Big Ten began to organize behind the scenes.

The most recent headlines from associated blogs can drive traffic for everyone in the group.

We all agreed to include links to each other’s blogs on our websites and someone created a feed reader that published the most recent headlines from the group in our sidebar. At the time it seemed like a good way to pick up a couple of readers from other college sports blogs. I had no idea the impact from the incoming links would be so huge.

Over the years, many of these blogs have grown into highly ranked websites while others have merged with larger content providers. Thanks to the network, we all have a number of incoming links from highly ranked websites loaded with relevant content.

The feed reader in the sidebar also notifies fellow bloggers and their readers of my most recent posts. I’ll often write headlines aimed at other blogs in the feed knowing that it may generate a response or at least drive traffic from other sites. This technique can often trigger a response from other blogs generating even more traffic for both of us.

Transfer this technique to a business blog and you could create a very powerful network. If you’re worried about competition, look for bloggers outside of your geographic region or closely related but not in direct competition with your business. Realize though that the benefits of the incoming link juice far outweigh the concerns of a few readers visiting another blog. Besides, if your content is good enough, they’ll find their way back to your site.

#7: Don’t Forget Internal Links

If you have a blog post that has achieved a good Google page rank on its own, use it to build in a couple of links to other pages within your site. The link will still hold search engine value even though it’s coming from within the same site.

Link-building takes time and should be an ongoing process. It’s also a world in which the rich get richer. As a website moves to the top of the search returns, lazy researcher syndrome kicks in. Reporters and bloggers will often click on the top returns just because they’re the first to pop up on the page. The upper positions on the search returns also bring perceived credibility just because of their position. As you work your way to the top positions, incoming links will start to develop on their own.

“Link-building is an ongoing process.”

Have you found success generating incoming links to your website or blog? What methods have you tried and what worked for you? Leave your comments and suggestions in the box below.

Would you like some tips to help your blog appear for specific keywords? If so, keep reading…

Why Search Matters for Blogs

In an earlier article, I talked about the importance of blogging and search engine rankings. However, once you’ve got the blog up and running, the next thing to do is to start optimizing your posts for the search engines. Although search engine optimization (SEO) can be overwhelming to the newcomer, once you understand a few basic concepts, you’ll soon find it’s really not that difficult.

Good SEO copy and a search engine–optimized website accomplish three things:

1. They’re easy for the search engines to read
2. They’re easy for the target audience to find
3. They’re easy for people to read

Everything you do to optimize a post is based around those three basic concepts.

So with that in mind, here are six things you can do to optimize your website or blog posts for the search engines:

#1: Start With Quality Content

The first and most important thing you can do is to write a good, informative post that is accessible, easy to read and appeals to your target audience. In the old days of SEO copywriting, web pages were stuffed with keywords to the point that it hurt the actual content. Aside from the fact that the search engines have caught on to keyword stuffing, readers are going to quickly bounce from a page that doesn’t provide the information they were seeking.

Information of value is also much more likely to attract incoming links. When search engines see other websites linking to a web page, especially if it includes relative content, they determine that the web page holds information of value and move it up the rankings.

SEO starts once you’ve got a solid blog post.

#2: Determine Targeted Keywords

Think like your target audience. Which words will they use to find your post? Once you’ve written your post, it’s important to decide how you want readers to find you. These search terms are your keywords. With a well-written post, the primary keywords are often obvious.

However, there are a number of tools available to help with keyword research. One of the most interesting tools I’ve found is Google Wheels.

The great thing about Google Wheels is that it gives you an idea of how Google thinks. When you enter a search term, Google returns a “wheel” or web of related terms. You can then click on each of these related terms to create more wheels. Using the wheel, you can quickly find related keywords that should be included in your post or meta information.

Google Wonder Wheel shows related keywords for the search term "SEO."

For example, the phrase “SEO tips” returns a Google Wheel with related phrases such as “SEO tools,” “meta tags,” and “search engine optimization tips” — all keywords that occur fairly naturally in this very post.

To find Google Wheels, expand the left-hand column on the main Google search page and look for "Wonder Wheel."

With a little revision and by including these terms in the meta title and descriptions (see below), you can include these keywords in your optimization. When Google sees related keywords in all the right places, it can easily determine the information on the page, thus improving the chances that the page will receive a higher search engine return.

#3: Write Strong Meta Titles and Descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions tell both the search engines and the reader what’s on the page. The meta title and description also show in the search engine results, so they need to convince readers to click through to the website. Good content management systems and blogging programs include a place for meta information.

In WordPress, premium themes such as Thesis or Studiopress include fields to directly enter the meta titles, description and tags. You can also use plugins such as the All in One SEO Pack, which adds meta fields. Other platforms such as Blogger require some basic coding. Whichever platform you use, the meta information is a vital step in optimizing a web page for the search engines.

Good meta descriptions match the content on the page. Primary keywords should appear at the beginning of both the title and description. Title tags are limited to 72 characters and title descriptions approximately 165 characters. Anything longer will be cut off in the search engine results. While it’s acceptable to use a number of keywords in the meta information (as long as it reads well), don’t overuse terms. Repeat a keyword more than twice and the search engines may actually penalize you for keyword stuffing.

While the general consensus is that Google no longer looks at the meta tags, other search engines might. It can’t hurt to add a few keywords to the meta tags. Focus on the primary keywords and don’t overdo it. Five or six of the keywords recommended by the Google Wheel would serve well for meta tags.

#4: Analyze and Revise

The next step is to analyze your copy, determine which keywords are rising to the top and make appropriate revisions. The problem is it can be hard to tell which words the search engines will recognize as primary keywords. Fortunately, there are a number of tools available to analyze a web page and show you primary keywords or keyword density.

Most free tools require you to publish the page before you can run an analysis. SEOCentro’s Meta Tag Analyzer provides a detailed analysis of a web page or blog post. It shows the relevance of the meta content to the information on the page, how it will appear in the search engine results and an in-depth keyword analysis including keyword density.

Along with keyword density, SEOCentro analyzes meta tags and their relevancy to the page content.

Textalyser.net and Live allow you to analyze copy and determine selected keyword density before publishing. With both of these tools, you’ll need to determine the primary keywords based on the density of the term. When looking at keyword density, it’s important to keep it below about 5%. Any higher and you might be penalized for keyword stuffing.

I personally use Scribe for SEO to analyze a web page or post before publishing. Although a premium tool, Scribe will not only makes suggestions for revision, it identifies primary and secondary keywords and provides tips for moving alternate keywords to the primary position. The latest version of Scribe also includes built-in keyword research and link-building tools.

Once you have a clear picture of how the search engines see your page or post, you can go back and revise to emphasize or change desired keywords.

#5: Internal and External Links

It’s important to include both internal and external links in your post. Internal links help the search engines index your site, identify primary keywords and can increase the page rank of linked pages. When linking to other pages on your site, it’s important to link related keywords instead of phrases like “click here.” Linking by keyword tells the search engines that there’s related content on the linked page.

For example, near the beginning of this article: “In an earlier article, I talked about the importance of blogging and search engine rankings.” A common SEO mistake would be to link to the term “article.” “Article” has little to do with the content on both this page and page to which I’m linking. However, the phrase “blogging and the search engines” includes keywords important to both articles.

External links or links leading to pages outside your website do a couple of things. Like internal links, external links help the search engines identify important keywords. Even more important, they can help create incoming links from other websites. When you link to another site, the blogger or webmaster will usually see a “trackback” or incoming link. If you offer related content, it’s possible that your colleague might find information of use on your site, and in turn, link to one of your articles. Incoming links from relevant and reputable websites are highly valued by the search engines. Actually, they’re probably one of the most important factors when determining search engine ranking.

Just like keywords, you don’t want to overuse linking. Too many links and it becomes spam. You also want to be sure that you’re linking to quality websites both in the eyes of the search engines and your readers.

#6: Optimize the URL

One of the easiest yet most overlooked elements to optimize is the URL. A simple URL that includes a couple of keywords helps the search engine determine what’s on the page.

• URLs such as “www.yoursitename.copm/2010/09/12/post143″ tell the search engine very little about the topic at hand.
• A URL such as “www.yoursitename.com/seo_tips” not only provides two highly targeted keywords for the search engines, it’s much easier for your reader to remember when looking for your article.

A real-world example:

An analysis of the text up to this point in this article (using Scribe for SEO) shows the following primary keywords:

• the search
• blog
• posts
• SEO
• engines
• tips
• optimize

Not really the words I wanted to highlight. “The search” comes from my repeated use of the phrase “the search engines.” I would much rather see “search engine optimization tips.” It’s important to note that when I ran my analysis, my meta information looked like this:

As you can see in the meta information, I’ve included the phrase “the search” in both the custom title tag and the meta description. I need to drop “the search” from my meta information so that it reads:

Custom Title Tag – “SEO for Blogs in Six Easy Steps”
Meta Description – “SEO isn’t all that complicated. These six easy tips will help you optimize your blog posts.”

I also went back and revised the copy so that I had fewer uses of the phrase “the search engines.”

When I run the analysis again, I can see that “SEO” has become my only primary keyword. I’m not quite happy with that, though; I want “SEO tips” as my primary keyword, so I’m going to change my title tag to read, “Six SEO Tips for Blogs” and delete “easy” from my meta description so that it reads, “SEO isn’t all that complicated. These six SEO tips will help you optimize your blog posts.”

This slight change is enough to make both “SEO” and “SEO tips” primary keywords.

In this case, changing the meta worked because I had already come close to my desired keywords through the natural process of writing on the topic. I could also refine even more by going back to my original article and increasing or decreasing the number of times a keyword is written or possibly highlighting selected keywords using bold text.

Although SEO may seem overwhelming and it may seem like the rules are always changing, remember what I said at the beginning of this article.

• An optimized blog post is easy for the search engines to read,
• It’s easy for the target audience to find and
• It’s easy for the target audience to read.

If your blog posts and web pages stay true to these three points, you’re already way ahead of the SEO game.

What are your favorite SEO tips? Is there an SEO tool you’ve found valuable in your blogging? Leave your comments in the box below.

How many of us have created a LinkedIn account and left it dormant for months?

It was my goal recently to attend more LinkedIn webinars and teleseminars to learn more about this mysterious network. I have often thought to myself, “I’m a professional. Why am I not utilizing this site?” I’ve even heard LinkedIn referred to as the “red-headed stepchild” of social media.

Here are some interesting facts that I learned about this often misunderstood network:

LinkedIn is a search engine and has a ton of authority on Google and other popular search engines.

Likely if you Google your name and you have a LinkedIn profile, it will show up on the first page of Google. This demonstrates the ranking authority of LinkedIn on Google.

Here are the top 6 things that I learned about this powerful network:

#1: Boosting Your Search Engine Optimization

There are three areas to add website links to your LinkedIn profile. Instead of displaying “My Blog” & “My Website,” click on Edit and then click on Other.  Type in a keyword phrase that describes how people can search to find your business.

For example, I changed my main mortgage website to say Foreclosure Options

I changed “My Blog” to say Social Media Marketing

I changed my Facebook fan page to say Facebook Marketing

What an incredibly easy way to boost your rankings in the search engines! Be sure to optimize your LinkedIn profile as soon as possible before your next client enters your main keyword(s) and finds your competition.

#2: Promoting Your Blog Feed

It is also possible to import your WordPress blog feed to your profile by searching for the WordPress application. This is a quick way for others to scan your blog content at a glance.

There is also another blog application on LinkedIn—Blog Link—which supports TypePad, Movable Type, Vox, WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Blogger, LiveJournal and many more.

Promote your blog and develop your personal brand. Everyone knows blogs are the best way to cultivate your personal brand. Now you can share your thoughts and insights on your blog on your professional home, LinkedIn.

#3: Creating LinkedIn Ad Campaigns

I had no clue that LinkedIn has its own Direct Ads Campaign targeted to professionals. I felt like I found a hidden treasure at the bottom of a huge sea! Because LinkedIn is a professional site, there is less likelihood of views from random people; rather, more from people interested in business-related information. I will definitely be utilizing this advertising feature this year.

Reach a rapidly growing community of over 57 million professionals (average household income: US $108,000), and select your ad’s audience by seniority, industry, job function, company size, and more.

It is possible to write, target, and start your ad in minutes, pay by clicks or impressions and get started with as little as US $50. Be sure to leverage the power of LinkedIn by using your professional brand to put a face to your business.

#4: Utilizing Events to Engage Clients

I really love LinkedIn’s event features because I “plan” to be an event planner in my next life. It’s not required to be the event coordinator to create an event. An event can be created if you have an interest in going to an event or will be an attendee.

Invitations can also be sent to your LinkedIn network, which will give you an opportunity to meet face to face if they decide to attend. The best feature is the ability to view at a glance all of your network’s upcoming events. As an event planner geek, it rocks my world to promote business events online just like I do in my personal hemisphere.

#5: Using Groups to Connect With People

Most people join groups and never come back to participate in them. I can raise my hand and say that I’m guilty of this bad practice too. I’ve started changing and participating in a lot more groups lately. However, STARTING a group is a great way to have access to email and stay in touch with your group as it grows. It does take some focused effort to grow your group but a great place to start is to invite your current network. As the people from your network join your group, this is visible to their networks’ news feeds which can potentially pique new interest.

I’m really amazed at the size of various groups on LinkedIn. Then I remember that professionals really enjoy networking, so I really shouldn’t be so surprised. Let’s take a look at a few groups on LinkedIn:

Social Media Today—18,078 members at the time of this writing

On Startups—Community of Entrepreneurs—123,680 members at the time of this writing

Real Estate Open Networkers—17,795 members at the time of this writing

Can you imagine having access to this many people at your fingertips?

#6: Getting Recommendations to Attract More Clients

Recommendations are one of the unique features of LinkedIn that sets it apart from other social media networks. What better way to really market your business than by having your colleagues and clients share your expertise?

I’m sure your next question is, “How can I obtain recommendations?” The best way is to live by the old adage:

“Give and you shall receive.”

Recommend your peers and they will return the favor. This is one area that I need to work on this year. It doesn’t take that much time, but if we don’t make it a focus, it won’t happen.

So what about you? Do you feel that LinkedIn is the red-headed stepchild of social media? Do you have any plans for this network in 2010? Let us know in the comments.

Here are seven powerful blog posting habits:

Tip #1: Clear Targeting

The first rule for creating effective content for your business blog is to completely understand why you’re blogging. Have a thorough understanding of your ideal reader’s (your customer’s) profile and of your core message as it relates to your business. If you have a really clear idea about who you’re writing for, it’s going to be easier to write. Your blog posts will be on target and on purpose. You won’t be meandering off into subjects that are irrelevant to your audience.

Tip# 2: Know What Your Readers Want

Always write with your reader in mind. Write as if you are answering the question “what’s in it for them?” Your readers are asking themselves all the time whether this blog is worth their time to read. You’re more likely to keep them interested if you’re “walking in their shoes.” Address your readers’ major issues and concerns. If you don’t know what they are, ask.

Tip #3: Edit Often

So many blog posts start off with, “The other day, I was thinking about…” or “You know, summer’s almost over and….” A blog post is not an essay and it’s not poetry. Get to the point right away. Follow the rule of KISS = Keep It Simple, Sugar! (or Keep It Short and Sweet). That means you can actually write less.

Write short, declarative sentences and omit all unnecessary words. This means read and reread your posts before you publish. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t been trained as a journalist or taken a lot of writing classes. If you can write an email, you can write a blog post. However, your blog writing will improve when you reread before publishing to be sure you have taken out all unnecessary words.

After you click the ‘publish’ button, read your post again. Often this is when you will catch typos or grammatical errors you didn’t see before. Show respect for your readers by having clean copy. It doesn’t take much for readers to abandon your blog; some might unsubscribe simply because your spelling is sloppy. In the online world, your words are all you’ve got.

Tip #4: Create Keyword-Rich Headlines

Write compelling headlines by using strategic keywords that are relevant to your topic. Keywords are often touted as gold by search engine optimization experts who want to charge you an arm and a leg for their services. But let’s make a complicated issue simple.

Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal reader. If this reader was searching Google for information or solutions to a problem, would she find you? Make a list of all the words or phrases she might use to search for you, your business, and your solutions. Those are the keywords and key phrases that you want to use frequently on your blog. When you write a headline for your blog post, use these keywords. This alerts the search engines as well as your reader about what’s important in your post.

For an in-depth discussion on writing effective blog post headlines, read Chris Garrett’s post on How to Create Headlines that Go Viral with Social Media.

Doing keyword research from time to time will help you stay on top of what your prospects want. You’ll find out exactly how readers are looking for the information you’ve got. Use the free keyword suggestion tool at WordTracker to make this simple. Your post headlines can also make it easy—or difficult—for people to find the information they want. Headlines should be as descriptive as possible. Don’t be vague. You can be cute (but not too cute), as long as what you’re putting in the headline clarifies what you’re really writing about or what the reader is going to learn.

Remember, it’s all about your readers. It’s about helping them find and use the content you are giving them. Blogging is going to be a fruitless exercise if your readers can’t get what they want out of reading your blog.

Tip #5: Write Great First Sentences

Write an optimized first paragraph using the same keywords you used in your post headline. Make your point right away rather than leading into it. Use clear keywords in the first sentence of the first paragraph, and then summarize them again before you close your blog post. Always close by asking readers for their comments.

Tip #6: Keep it Short and Spacey

When writing, keep paragraphs short. They should be one or two sentences at most, and then break for a new paragraph. White space is your friend. Sometimes just one sentence can be as effective as a paragraph. You want lots of white space between paragraphs on your blog.

Remember, most readers are in a hurry. Text on a computer screen is also harder to read than text on paper. You want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to grasp your message quickly.

Tip #7: Use Bulleted Lists

Use bullet points and lists as often as possible. This makes your post easy:

• To read
• To scan
• To understand
• To remember

Research shows that people prefer things to be easily digestible and chunked down for them. It’s easier for them to remember your message if you’ve given it to them in a list of three to five items. Some online writing experts also recommend keeping lists to an odd number of bullet points, but the important part is to use lists whenever you can.

There are many ways to ensure you have great blog posts. These seven tips provide a good starting point and checklist to help you stay on track and create content your readers will devour and that will move them to action.

What other tips would you add to this list to write better blog posts? Share your best blogging tips in the comments below.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/ / CC BY 2.0