Duplicate content (good or bad?)

December 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment

For writers such as myself it makes sense that I want as many people as possible to read what I have to say. The first way to do this is to get my site and my content ranked well on Google for valid searches that I write about. The second way is to syndicate my content and share it across many partner sites in the hope that someone will stumble upon it, read it, follow the link to my main site in the footer and possibly bookmark and continue to read my main body of content.

I’ve heard some discussion about duplicate content lately and I wanted to set the record straight here about what Google thinks about a writer distributing content to other sites. The issue here is this - Google does NOT want their users to do a search and get links to the same content in the results. They want a varied list of options so the user can choose and get as many links as possible to multiple sources. This makes so much sense in my mind that I’m surprised that I had to even research it. Read more


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under SEO News and Tidbits 

Tidbits and Advice 12.1.07 (Press Release SEO)

December 1, 2007 | 1 Comment

Is it December already? Man, I can’t believe we’re almost through another year within the wild, wonderful world of SEO and the web. Many, many things have changed this year but there is one thing that hasn’t changed - you’re ability to effectively promote your website by optimizing a properly crafted press release. In the words of Sarah Skerik - Vice President, Distribution Services - PR Newswire:

Remember that SEO is really the art and science of being found by your audience. For that reason, you have to use the language they use when searching for or discussing topics related to your product or industry. Put more simply - don’t use jargon!  

This week a friend of mine that writes a blog about help, coaching and inspiration for small business owners sent out his first press release and he was pleasantly surprised to get a mention on the Inc.com site about one of his latest offerings about avoiding common business startup mistakes. I know it must have been a very exciting step for his publication and all it took was a well crafted press release. For a quick rundown of SEO press release services and advice check out the link here by Lee Odden over at the Online Marketing Blog. A quick scan reveals the following important tidbits:

  • Write a pithy (80 character or less,) descriptive headline that includes important keywords
  • Use important keywords in the headline, and then again in the lead (and throughout your message)
  • Incorporate links from your targeted keywords in the press release
  • Link your strategically important search keywords to deep relevant pages in your site
  • Use keyword links throughout your text
  • create appropriate deep pages (aka landing pages)
  • Think of your press release as creating a mini web page
  • Insert a company logo for branding and embed photos, graphics and video links
  • Add an audio link such as a podcast or product announcement

Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under SEO News and Tidbits 

Tidbits and Advice 11.30.07 (PPC Mistakes)

November 30, 2007 | Leave a Comment

SEO QUICKSTART TIDBIT #1:

As part of an ongoing list called “what the hell is Google thinking” I’d like to offer this little tidbit of experience from Randfish over at SEOMoz.org where he observes how Google may be actually penalizing him for trying to make his user experience better. This will undoubtedly continue to be a focus for all of us going forward as we try to move more to Web 2.0 site features while still trying to rank.

Hey look… We’re back to ranking #2 for “recommended list” after we 301′d our old page to the Marketplace section. I’m going to go with the theory that we got penalized for having too much content in CSS hidden layers because we used drop-downs for the list of companies so the page wouldn’t be huge. I’m trying to make it good for users, Google! Don’t penalize for that!

SEO QUICKSTART TIDBIT #2:

Over at Bizmord.com I was reading through the article 17 Most Common PPC Mistakes Web Marketers Make and I gleened a few nuggets of knowledge that I thought I would pass on here. Most of these tidbits I was aware of but it’s always good to get reinforcement. If you’re just starting out with PPC you need to know that it’s not as easy as you might think. Just like SEO, it’s a world of it’s own and you need to continuously learn and keep up with what works and what doesn’t.

1) focus on the “long tail keywords”
2) look at your own web statistics for exact keyword variations people use to search for your product
3) #1 ad in paid search results is not the brightest strategy
4) Try geo-targeting even if you sell nation wide
5) Make sure you’re linking your ad to a relevant landing page
6) Craft a unique Google ad that stands out among your competition
7) Do not put your phone number in your ad
8) Monitor your company name and make sure that your competition is not targeting your name too
9) Offer seasonal or holiday discounts in your ads
10) Make sure that you list your negative keywords (words that you do not want to be shown)
For example, I might want to be shown for SEO advice or SEO services but not SEO by itself.
12) Focus on keywords that convert and make changes, not just keywords that have the highest click thru
13) Put your keywords into the ad copy so they stand out
14) Monitor and report unfair practices by your competition
15) Consider bidding on your competitors brand names


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under SEO News and Tidbits 

Tidbits and Advice 11.29.07 (Website Authority)

November 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment

SEO QUICKSTART TIDBIT #1:

Some might say that banner advertising is dead. If you’re interesting in marketing on a specific niche site and only accepts banners or you possibly have ad positions on your site that are banners, consider making them look less like banners and more like text.

From an interview with Jason Lexell “I read once in a book about copy writing that many people thought that “print was dead.” No it’s not dead. I think people like to call things they don’t know how to use effectively dead. An example are the google ads. You might say… “but these are text ads in highly relevant positions… they aren’t banners!” Well, then make your banners occupy more relevant positions and make them look more like text. I’ve got banners that consistently pull 2-3%. Anyone will tell you that’s 10 times the average.”

This just reinforces the theory that you can use links throughout your site to get people around. You might actually be doing more harm than good if you try to draw attention to something by making it a graphic. People might glaze over it and more importantly, the search engines might ignore it.

SEO QUICKSTART TIDBIT #2:

Arron Wall reports an interesting observation where he concludes why Wikipedia ranks well for a lot of big keywords but not on highly targeted and profitable keys. Here is a summary of his theory:

“Although Wikipedia ranks well for competitive phrases, they don’t belong to the associated topical communities. They rank primarily on site authority. While they have enough content to rank for said terms, they don’t have pages targeting those terms. In many cases the relevant content for the phrase is compressed as part of a broader related page. Their title tags target core keywords and lacks modifiers needed to rank well for popular terms that Wikipedia did not dedicate unique pages to.

To summarize the important observations as a Quick Start SEO Checklist:

1) Website authority is your general standing in the web community based on the amount of other relevant and important site that think you’re cool and useful. This is comprised of Relevant Content, Consistent Updates to Your Pages and Deep Linking from Authoritative Sources.

2) You must have this to rank well among your competitors. You must build individual pages that target your specific keywords. There is a very large difference between the act of targeting a page revolving around Bee Hives and a page about Properly managing bee hives.

3) The individual keywords that are a focus on your pages, including your page title, subject matter and keywords need to be highly specific and targeted to attract links and to rank well for those specific searches.


Posted by Christopher Auman | Filed Under SEO News and Tidbits 

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