Better SEO & Content Strategy

Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) is Google’s suite of tools, data & diagnostics to “help you have a healthy, Google-friendly site.”

It’s the only place to get search engine optimization information about your website directly from Google.

Side note – Bing has a separate but similar tool suite at Bing Webmaster Tools.

Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) is free. Any website can use it. But, simply installing it will not improve your SEO, or your organic traffic. It’s a toolset – which means you have to understand how to use Google Search Console effectively to make any difference on your website.

In 2018, Google has launched an all-new Google Search Console. It’s out of Beta and open to the public. If you are used to the old Webmaster Tools, much of the data & structure might be familiar. Many pieces were removed, but overall your access to data is much improved. There is way more data that is way more accessible than the old Webmaster Tools.

That said, it is still bit daunting to understand. This tutorial will go through what each feature is, what you should be using it for, and some ideas on being creative with it. [Read more…] about How To Use Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) Effectively

This post was originally published in 2012 – and the three trends that I said “killed” keyword rankings then have now been overshadowed by even larger trends. I’m going to update you on what has changed and what actually matters to you now.

In 2018, organic traffic & search engine optimization is a completely different world. Google’s Search Results Pages (SERPs) look different. Google Search has more features. More people are searching on mobile than desktop.

*Aside – throughout this piece, I will use “Google” in place of “search engine.” Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines matter, but Google has consistently driven the trends that I discuss – in addition to owning most of the marketshare.

And yet – “where does my website rank in Google” still feels like the right question to ask.

That’s because your keyword ranking does matter as a tool more than ever. But it matters less as a metric than it has since the late 2000s. [Read more…] about Why Your Keyword Rank Doesn’t Matter…and what actually does

Google might be the ultimate search engine. But it’s still a search engine. It’s only as good as the instructions you give it.

So did you know that Google has a plethora of search operators that make it easy for you to find exactly what they’re looking for?

Whether you’re doing research for a content strategy, trying to grow your personal brand, or even looking for linking opportunities for your business’ website, search operators are here to make your searches more effective. But first, you have to know how they work.

I’ve compiled a list of Google’s search operators, as well as examples of how to use them. Then, I dive into how to combine these operators to get the most out of your search. [Read more…] about How to Search On Google More Effectively

The biggest problem for website owners and marketers in 2018 and beyond isn’t the tools available. It’s figuring out how to use the tools they have.

What Is Ahrefs?

Ahrefs is one of the most powerful suites of social media & SEO tools that I’ve ever used. Most SEOs know it as a “backlink checker” that competes with Majestic and intelligence/analytics tools with smaller indices like Moz & SEMRush. But “backlink checker” grossly undersells Ahrefs as a marketing suite.

Ahrefs has so many features that you can get lost and resort to simply staring at your own links – maybe rank tracking a few keywords. Here’s the guide to how to use Ahrefs that I wish existed when I first signed up.

*Reader’s Note 1 – this guide was originally published in Oct. 2015. It’s been updated throughout for November 2018 to reflect Ahref’s new design.

*Reader’s Note 2 – all images are clickable if you want to see the full resolution.

[Read more…] about Ahrefs Guide: How To Use Ahrefs for SEO, Content & Link Building

Anyone who owns a website and recognizes the opportunity to get visitors from Google organic search suspects the importance of keywords. But how do you use those keywords on your website to actually get traffic? Put them in the meta=”keywords”? Use them over and over on your site?

Note: nothing against Bing, but I’ll be using “search engine” and “Google” interchangeably in this post

It’s been more 15 years since simply using keywords on your website was the only way for search engines to understand the relevance of your website. It’s no longer about just stuffing keywords all over your site. Search engines have gotten much smarter.

Google and Bing use hundreds of signals to try to decipher and rank the relevance of your website. They factor in what other people say about your site; they try to place your content in a graph of topics and entities, and perform all sorts of semantic analysis.

But keywords are still part of the foundation of how search engines understand your website.

Using keywords effectively on your website will help you tell a better story to both your visitors and search engines, and it will help communicate what searches your website is relevant for…so that you can get more visitors from search engines.

Here’s how to use keywords on your website with what is known in the SEO industry as a “keyword map.” [Read more…] about Keyword Mapping for SEO: How To Use Keywords On Your Website

If you’ve done any research on how to grow your website online, you’ve likely run into articles about SEO talking about organic traffic, ranking, and a whole bunch of other marketing jargon.

Which leaves just one question… what the heck is SEO anyway, and why do you need it?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of optimizing your website’s technical setup, content, and your marketing so that search engines can properly crawl, index & judge the relevance of your website…so that your website’s page will appear more visibly and more often for search queries related to your website.

So, I’m going to break it way down. Here’s exactly what SEO is and why you need it.

[Read more…] about What Is SEO and Why Do I Need It?

Google Correlate is a tool that Google rolled out in 2011. It’s a close cousin to Google Trends – well, it’s actually Google Trends in reverse (and just as powerful).

Since it’s launch it has received some buzz and become a useful tool among academics, but it’s never become a part of the standard toolset among marketers the way Google Trends has.

There are a lot of reasons for that. Google hasn’t publicized Correlate the way it has the general Trends toolset. Correlate even has features that sporadically break. But I think the slow adoption is because marketers don’t realize the potential of Google Correlate – or even how it works.

According to Google, it is –

a tool on Google Trends which enables you to find queries with a similar pattern to a target data series. The target can either be a real-world trend that you provide (e.g., a data set of event counts over time) or a query that you enter.

In other words, the pattern generates the keywords rather than the keywords generating the pattern. So you do have to think in reverse.

Before we go into specific use cases for Google Correlate – a couple notes on caveats.

First, Google Correlate does not pull absolute search volume. Just like Trends, it is based on the share of total volume. All terms are relative to each other. You still need to use Keyword Planner or another keyword research tool to find search volume.

Second, correlation does not equal causation. Just because terms correlate with each other does not mean they share a causal relationship. There’s a lot of noise in the Correlate data, but plenty of hidden gems too. You’ll have to use your best judgment.

Here are five ways to use Google Correlate and integrate it into your marketing research toolset. [Read more…] about Google Correlate: How To Use It For Marketing, SEO & Content

Quora is the largest question and answer website on the internet. It has been around since 2009.

While Quora never achieved the cultural prominence that it was hyped up to be in the mid-2000s, it has become a staple of the internet.

Quora allows you to get answers from real experts or at least people in relevant industries. Unlike Google, Facebook or Twitter, it allows you to get more nuanced answers.

But like any giant website with lots of user-generated content like Wikipedia, Pinterest or Reddit, it’s an absolute gold mine for SEO and content strategy.

Here are some ways that I use Quora for SEO, content development and link building. [Read more…] about How To Use Quora For SEO & Content Marketing

You won’t get ahead in any industry if you simply copy your competitors. And this is especially true in SEO & content marketing.

Competitor research for SEO is really tough because…

• Nobody truly knows what they are doing.
• Confirmation bias is the default.
• Being different has a bigger payoff than being better.
• Your competitors are probably copying you.
• And a myriad other reasons.

But – you’re probably going to do it anyway so here’s a few things I do to make it a little more useful. [Read more…] about 7+ Ways To Do Better Competitor Research for SEO & Content Marketing

So you want to promote your website online…for free, preferably.

By now, you probably know from experience that the “build it and they will come” philosophy is flawed. You can have great content — in fact, you need at least “good” content — but unless you know how to promote it, your site is a ghost town. But you also don’t have the budget to go straight to advertising online.

You don’t need a grab bag of tips and tricks. You don’t need best practices to “go viral”. What you need is an actual process to follow consistently to create a “flywheel effect“.

Here is an exact, step-by-step strategy that I recommend to anyone who wants to promote their website online. The specific details vary, but it’s a pretty tried and true path for anyone who wants to promote their website.

[Read more…] about How to Promote Your Website Online (for free!)

Wikipedia is the 800 lb gorilla in the Google search results. It ranks for almost half of all searches. It is the online resource. Google has even built large portions of its Knowledge Graph off the back of Wikipedia.

It’s also a motherlode of SEO resources – right behind Google Keyword Planner, Google Search, and Google Analytics. It’s useful for both on-page & off-page SEO for 2 reasons –

• Wikipedia is human knowledge. It uses language the way humans use it, because it’s written by humans. It connects topics and keywords in ways that only humans can.
• Wikipedia is the online resource. People trust it, use it, and reference it.

So whether you are just starting out planning your website’s keyword strategy, looking for new content ideas, or looking for ways to build trust for your website, here’s how to use Wikipedia for SEO and content marketing. [Read more…] about How To Use Wikipedia for SEO & Content Marketing

You’re looking for the best digital marketing and SEO podcasts on the Internet. You’re a huge or at least curious consumer of podcasts.

And you’ve probably figured by now that almost all marketing / SEO podcasts are terrible. They either –

1. Provide zero information at best or wrong information at worst
2. Are a straight up sales funnel tool for a scammy agency
3. Quit after a few episodes – so they don’t have any back catalog

And to make matters worse – the search engines in your podcast app of choice are about as good as Altavista circa 1999. And – nearly every list like this online just copies the most popular in any given category. I want to fix that with this post.

With that in mind, here’s my list of best digital marketing & SEO podcasts – in no particular order – that are all worth listening to. [Read more…] about 12+ Best Digital Marketing & SEO Podcasts Worth Listening To

Here’s an open secret for anyone starting a website: Google loves SEO. It makes their job easier. They provide free Starter Guides To SEO. They provide a very deep and detailed guide to website best practices. And best of all – they provide free SEO tools that you can wield to improve your website. If you are starting out and looking for just beginner SEO tools – this is huge.

No need to buy expensive software. No need to get in-depth training courses for only $$$. There are plenty of amazing tools out there – but with a little know-how, you can start getting search traffic to your site with these free tools from Google. Here they are and how to use them… [Read more…] about 5 Free Beginner SEO Tools From Google & How to Use Them

Content marketing is a marketing strategy that uses content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, and to convince them to take some sort of profitable action (also called a conversion).

I’ll be explaining why you should explore investing in content marketing (as part of your general marketing strategy) and breaking down 3 ways you can do it to increase your site traffic and your sales.

Why Content Marketing?

People are over ads. Just think of your own online behavior. When is the last time you clicked on an ad on Google or saw a billboard that you thought was cool?

Enter content marketing. Content marketing isn’t exactly new… in fact, it’s positively ancient.

A century ago, seed companies and farm suppliers like John Deere gave out almanacs to farmers. It was how they established relationships with their customers, found out their needs, and did long-term sales.

It’s 2016 and things haven’t really changed, except for the fact that content marketing is actually more suited to our digital age. The Internet is awash with attention grabbing headlines, which means no one even sees your ad unless they are looking for it (which is where Google AdWords comes in), or if it provides real value, which is what content marketing is all about.

Content marketing is also incredibly versatile. You can build an entire business around your content marketing efforts because it hits each stage of the funnel. It also integrates with nearly every type of advertising, from paid media to SEO, meaning you get more bang for your buck by creating great content to support your other marketing efforts.

So how can you put it to use? Here are three broad ways to approach content marketing:

Increase Reach & Awareness

One of the primary ways to use content marketing is to create content that gets you in front of new audiences. Basically, this boils down to creating unique and valuable content that’s broad enough to reach those who aren’t familiar with your brand.

Take this YouTube Channel by Jas. Townsend and Son, Inc. This content is broad enough that even someone who doesn’t know the brand can find it and even appreciate it. It fuels the “awareness stage” of the funnel (AKA, when someone learns about a brand).

When you’re using content marketing to increase reach and awareness, consider utilizing these three primary methods to achieve your goal:

Social

By creating content that people are happy to share with friends on social media, you can expand your reach exponentially. Take the “This Girl Can” video from Sport England. This video went viral as thousands of people shared it across social media. Chances are, most of the people who came across the video had never heard of Sport England.

SEO

If you create content that ranks for broad topics that solve issues that correspond with your project, you’re reaching people that may not know you, but definitely have issues your business can solve. REI does a great job of this. They site provides resourceful content that addresses issues their target audience are trying to solve. So, when a hiker searches for “backpacking trips in the US” on Google, the top ranked content comes from REI – a brand.



Advertising

By creating ads that are broad and applicable to a large audience, a brand can utilize advertising to expand their reach and audience scope. Think about Buzzfeed, which is funded solely with this business. They create epic content that goes viral on a regular basis, reaching a HUGE audience for their content and advertiser’s content, which exposes even more customers to brands (and Buzzfeed).


Increase Inbound Traffic

Content marketing it also useful for increasing inbound traffic. Inbound is just marketing jargon for being where your customers are. In terms of content marketing, it means putting content out there that brings people to your website, instead of throwing ads at them and interrupting whatever they’re doing (like YouTube video ads…). Let’s take a look at REI again and see how they do this through social, SEO, and advertising.

Social

REI creates interesting and clickable stories that they share via their social media channels. This post about duct-tape hacks is a great example of interesting educational content that is applicable to REI’s outdoor enthusiast audience.

SEO

We’ve already seen how REI excels using SEO to find other audiences, but the brand has a host of useful educational content that can both be linked and that shows up in search engines. 

Advertising

When it comes to advertising, REI uses content marketing exceptionally well. The brand was featured in AdWeek for sharing inspirational stories of dedicated campaigns as a new advertising campaign called “Every Trail Connects”.

The campaign highlights the strategic difference between inbound and outbound marketing: the inbound style here uses emotional content in order to connect with an audience, instead of making a cold sale to a potential customer through a paid media ad focusing on a big sale.

Increase Conversions

A third quick way to use content marketing is to create content that you can use to sell, reassure, or educate existing customers and visitors. This can come to life in three ways: through using retargeting, using on-site content, or using email.

Retargeting

When you retarget a customer, you’re reaching back out to someone who visited your site but did not convert. In terms of content marketing, this means using content to draw existing fans back. The content should be interesting and educational, and provide additional value that the customer didn’t originally find on your site. Perhaps you offer a special PDF download guide, or a webinar course that only few have access too. Whatever it is, make it valuable.

On-site

Getting customers to convert isn’t just something that happens outside of your site. You can actually use on-site content that educates or reassure high consideration visitors that they are making the right decision in doing business with you. This content can be customer testimonials, reviews, or third party references about your products and services.

Email

Content marketing through email looks similar to retargeting in that you’re using it to serve content that brings customers back to your website. This email content can be anything — exclusive discounts for email list, advanced-access to a tool or educational video, or even a pre-sale announcement for a new product. The ultimate goal here is to get customers back on the site and to convert.

Next Steps

Whether your are a business owner or work for an agency, marketing in 2016 means that you understand the importance of content marketing.

To get started, decide which of the above approaches has the most immediate and significant impact on your business. Then, start building that by creating educational, entertaining, and thoughtful content that aligns with your end goal.

 

On March 19th, Google manually penalized one of the most well-known guest blog communities online – MyBlogGuest – for engaging in a link scheme and violating Google’s guidelines. They also announced that users of MyBlogGuest could be receiving penalties.

It seems unfair to penalize guest blogging. Google cannot manually judge the intent of every guest post on the Internet. Not all guest posts are intended for link manipulation. After all, guest blogging is done for very legitimate reasons, such as sharing expertise or opinion in front of a new or larger audience. Even Google’s blogs accept guest posts.

Regardless of what Matt Cutts or the SEO community says, here’s the real reason MyBlogGuest was penalized.

EDIT: As of August 2015, Google has used this same process to set expectations and trigger behavior for mobile, doorway pages, furthering HTTPS, and more. It’s an important concept to understand so that you are neither cynical of Google nor paranoid of Google’s changes.

[Read more…] about The Real Reason MyBlogGuest Was Penalized By Google

Congratulations! You have a new website or blog. Now how do you get your first website visitors to it?

You totally understand this is a long-term effort, and you don’t expect 30,000 visitors to show up on your new site within 2 weeks (not that that wouldn’t be nice). However – you don’t want to be building something for the void either – and you want some sort of positive feedback to keep you writing and building.

There’s been a ton of information spilled on this topic – and frankly there are entire websites/experts/industries dedicated to helping you do just that (and newsletters).

But from what I’ve found for myself and for friends is that 90% of it is really quite worthless. It’s either –

• Too advanced (ie, just create a solid keyword map and go 100% SEO!)
• Too vague (ie, just find your audience and get in on the conversation)
• Too expensive (ie, just buy this course for $197!…)
• Too much cart before the horse (ie, just build your Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+, and email list first!)

Not that any of those aren’t true eventually, but they are quite daunting and require learning extra skills or spending valuable time when your #1 focus should be simply reading, writing, and promoting.

Even though social media is hot, and SEO sounds sexy and complicated – here’s 3 old school ways to get your first website visitors that don’t get nearly enough attention, but still work wonders to get your snowball rolling. [Read more…] about 3 Old School Ways to Get Your First Website Visitors