Tag: search engine optimization

An inside look at SEO that outsiders can understand

Rand Fishkin talks about what SEO is and isn’t, and what people (rightly or wrongly) think about search engine optimization.

MozImagine trying to figure out what an airplane does by looking at one on display in a museum.

Now imagine trying to figure out what an airplane does by watching one that’s taking off. By catching something on the move, or in transition, so much more about what it does, and how it does it, becomes apparent.

So…I invite you to take a look at the blog post SEO thought-leader Rand Fishkin has written about the transition of his company SEOMoz to its new identity, Moz. Rand writes beautifully, and his decision to rebrand the company was all about what SEO is and isn’t, and what people (rightly or wrongly) think about search engine optimization. Think of it as an insiders look at SEO that outsiders can understand.

The “Mission & Vision” section of the post also contains a marvelously clear and unpretentious infographic. Infographics are the latest online communications fad and, predictably, about half of them seem to have been designed to communicate how trendy and clever the design firm is, with the actual client information being ignored or mangled in the process. As with many other aspects of marketing communications, the Moz folks know how to do things the right way.

Have a look.

And the next time people start whining to me that SEO is either confusing or inherently evil, I’m just sending them to this post.

MacVoices: Chuck Joiner and I talk about blogging

Chuck Joiner of MacVoices and I recorded a MacVoices show about blogging — the history, the growth, the high points, and the Dark Ages.

MacVoicesChuck Joiner of MacVoices TV and I have been talking about blogging — the history, the growth, the high points and the Dark Ages. Last week, we got together and recorded a show on that topic.

We started back in the old days — with LiveJournal and the Golden Age of blogging when people found their voices and harnessed the publishing power of the World Wide Web. We talked about the rise and fall of newsreaders, and the effects that newer and nimbler social media platforms have had on the once-mighty blogosphere.

You can listen to (or download) the show online. You’ll also find today’s show on the MacVoices TV page in iTunes.

We’re planning to take a second shot at the topic in a few weeks, this time with some friends who will help us explore the uneasy relationship between journalism and blogging and — a hot topic for Chuck — the impact that SEO has had on blogging. Plus, I’m hoping to get in a segment on people whose blogs have been stepping stones on the way to book publishing.

Your questions and comments can help shape those next conversations. Please leave a message for us on the show’s page at MacVoices.

 

Social media — a quick guide to doing it right

The folks over at the Search Engine Marketing Group have written a concise article on how to optimize your social media presence.

If you’ve made the first steps into social media to take control of your online appearance, or that of your product, service, or event, chances are you’ve been quickly overwhelmed and annoyed by all the work it seems to require. Post here, link here, comment here…and, face it, we all have real work to do! Which are these tasks are important for reputation and search engine ranking and which are just digital squirrel-caging?

Now, we have some answers.

Kristi Hines over at the Search Engine Marketing Group has written a concise article on how to optimize your social media presence. “How to Optimize 7 Popular Social Media Profiles for SEO” makes sure you know about the basics of social media and then gets very specific about what you can do with the SEO tools on Linkedin, Quora, Biznik, About.me, and more.

If your online presence is due for a facelift, you couldn’t pick a better place to start.

Corporate bloggers: Stop competing against Perez Hilton

Stop competing against Perez Hilton. Instead, start using the power of a corporate blog to compete against your actual competition.

There’s blogging…and there’s corporate blogging. Today I’m going to talk about the difference.

Individuals, news organizations, and political groups blog for blogging’s sake. And those blogs live and die by their content: Quality of writing; freshness of information; originality (or outrageousness) of ideas.

Quick — name three individual blogs, news blogs, or political blogs.

Easy: Huffington Post. Robert Scoble. The Unofficial Apple Weblog. Perez Hilton. Gizmodo.

Now name three corporate blogs.

?

Not so easy.

Just because they aren’t wildly popular doesn’t mean that corporate blogs don’t have their place. Done properly, they can be extremely powerful tools to drive traffic, drive sales, and enhance recognition of a brand, products, or services.

What’s difficult to grasp is that, unlike non-corporate blogs, corporate blogs don’t accomplish these things through great writing, fresh information, or original or outrageous ideas.  They accomplish these results through hard work and smart SEO. Here’s how:

1. They consistently put fresh content on the top tier of the company’s website (which improves search rank for the whole site).

2. They use carefully researched keywords and keyword phrases in headlines, blog text, links, and excerpts. This eventually positions the company near the top of search results for those frequently searched keywords.

3. They link appropriately to other highly ranked websites.

4. They harness WordPress or other user-friendly blogging software to automatically send (keyworded) excerpts with links (think of them as teasers) to the company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. This makes the resources invested in the blog post go much further.

For reasons too complex and varied to go into here, few companies are willing to admit that their blogs are simply a tool. And, as a result, they miss out on the powerful results that tool can accomplish.

There’s no way that the carefully screened, days-old corporate information or flattering customer stories that make up corporate blog posts can compete with Perez Hilton or Engadget for readership. Few people read them; all people will ever see of those posts is excerpts on Twitter or on a page of Google search results. (And yet, properly written and keyworded, those excerpts can be very effective in conveying a company’s branding to thousands of viewers.)

To make the situation even worse, many companies fail to invest in the sort of professional SEO analyses that would tell them which keywords to use in their blogs (and on their websites). Instead, they guess about keywords — and often end up emphasizing keywords they already “own” via Google (such as the unique names of their products) rather than the phrases prospective customers are using to try to find their products and services. In the non-intuitive world of keywording, it can even be beneficial to violate the old taboo against mentioning the competition. By mentioning your competition or a competing product on a webpage or blog, you can end up with visitors who started off looking for the competitor’s product but got search results that lured them into viewing your product, on your site, instead. (Chances are your competition is already doing this.)

Bottom line: Stop trying to compete against Perez Hilton! Instead, start using the power of a corporate blog to compete — against your actual competition.

“We can’t say that!” Why not?

Rand Fishkin’s public postings about the process of seeking investment capital for his company SEOMoz may represent a trend toward transparency in business communications.

I’ve been doing communications, in-house and as a consultant, for more years than I like to admit.

With nearly every client, and certainly with every in-house gig, I remember the meetings in which we’d sit with senior leaders and map out a plan to distract attention from what was really going on in the company.

Occasionally one of us on the communications team would suggest: “Why don’t we just tell people some of what’s going on?”

“We can’t say that!” was always the answer. There would be a general round of patronizing chuckles, gasps of terror, or snorts of scorn (the reaction depended on the organization) before everyone got back to the business of obfuscation.

Curt Woodward, writing today for Xconomy Seattle, describes how SEOmoz CEO Rand Fishkin is breaking that tradition by writing publicly about what he’s doing and thinking as he seeks investment capital for his company. Fishkin’s observations are interesting, and Woodward has made them even more so by consolidating all of Fishkin’s blog posts and other communications using Storify, an online tool for stitching together web-based information.

I don’t think that every company or organization is ready for transparency about its plans, nor are certain issues (such as personnel changes or litigation) appropriate to discuss publicly. But I do think transparency is a trend, and, increasingly, something business partners and consumers will come to expect.

Who you gonna call? Ghost bloggers.

I sit down with clients and figure out what they really want to get in return for the time they put in — or the money they spend — on a business blog.

Haunted by your business blog? You know, the one you were going to write posts for two or three times a week, but which hasn’t been updated since  — oh dear — Valentine’s Day?Ghost Blogger

Call me. I’m a ghost blogger.

I sit down with clients and figure out what they really want to get in return for the time they put in — or the money they spend — on a business blog. We start with these questions:

• Is the blog there simply to provide the fresh content required to move the site up in the search engine rankings?

• Is the blog’s purpose more complex? Is it a component of a vigorous, structured search engine optimization (SEO) plan, intended to get important keywords on the site for the search engines to find, and to generate links to and from other strong websites?

Either way, I can usually help. If the business has particular SEO issues (it’s a newcomer in a crowded, competitive field, for instance), I’m likely to recommend that the client work with a professional SEO analyst to make recommendations for keywords. This will focus the blogging effort and can also be applied to the rest of the client’s website.

Once we’ve established the blog’s objectives, I draw up a list of two dozen or more blog topics for the client’s approval, and write a sample blog post or two. (How do I find those topics? Aha! We’re into my secret ghost-blogger voodoo here.)

If the client’s happy with this preliminary work, we then decide if I will coach someone at the business to write the posts, or if they’d prefer to contract with me to write posts for them.

I’ve just completed Phase I of a ghost blogging project (topic list and sample posts) for a client and am hoping they’ll bring me on to write the actual posts. It’s a highly colorful business with dozens of juicy topics. I pride myself on being able to write about nearly anything, but it’s always nice if the subject matter meets you half way.

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