Posts Tagged ‘Google’

Google’s Next Moves?

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/next-arrow-sign.jpg” alt=”next arrow sign” title=”next arrow sign” width=”200″ height=”150″ class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-11265″ />The following is a guest post by Mark Barry from Integrity SEO Experts.

Since the notorious Google Panda/Farmer update in February 2011 there has been considerable speculation about what the updated algorithm means in the long term.

Going back a bit, Google’s algorithm was set to determine what type of content a website was offering. Moving more up to date, it began to include factors such as user interaction with any given site.

Today, the algorithm appears to be considering some quite radical additional factors which take account of both content quality and user experience of individual sites.

Although there are still no hard and fast facts or figures as yet, industry experts believe that there are definitely a number of user experience factors which Google has data on and is currently using. They can be broken down into four main sections:

Visitor Behavior

The first of these is visitor behavior, not just on-site but before a visitor clicks through. Google’s preview feature (the magnifying glass to the right of each search result) gives users the option to preview websites before loading. It is believed that sites currently high in the rankings which are overlooked by visitors will be penalized. Once on page, other visitor behavior which could be used by Google includes:

• Bounce rate
• Print occurrences
• Time on website
• Scrolling

Feedback

Another sector is feedback from website visitors:

• Brand searches
• Comments or reviews on content/products
• Repeat visits
• Social media feedback (+1 or Likes, for example)

Interestingly, the Google Chrome browser, which currently has almost 20% of the search engine market share, includes a toolbar plug-in which lets users block certain sites they do not find of interest. Enough blocks of this type are already affecting sites in a negative way.

User-Friendly Features

Sometimes overlapping the feedback section, user-friendly features include:

• Advertising density (percentage vs. content on page)
• Quality of advertising (low click through/high bounce = negative)
• Media incorporation e.g. videos
• Purchasing behavior (displaying popular items to establish
  credibility)

Content

The last section is all about the quality of content and how appropriate it is for the targeted audience. This is the least clear section in terms of how it could be applied to the algorithm, but paying attention to these factors can only be a good thing:

• Keywords and/or Keyword Stuffing – relevance of keywords and
  percentage of use per page
• Spelling and Grammar – should be 100%, even reviews and comments
  with poor spelling and grammar can equate to a poor user experience
• Reading Level – suitable for a 13 to 14 year old is considered about
  right so that an average adult reader can absorb the information quickly
• Page similarity and weak pages – pages which contain very similar

information to each other or those which contain no relevant copy at all should be removed or re-written to avoid negativity.

The changes have left a lot of uncertainty with SEO companies as they are not sure if their methodologies are still going to be effective. The only thing that they can still be certain of is that unique content and a quality <a href=“ http://www.integritySEOexperts.co.uk/link-building-services/”>link building service is the way forward.

Of course the fact that any or all of this is being used in Google’s algorithm is presently just supposition or educated guesswork, but there is certainly no harm in paying attention to these matters which at the end of the day can only serve to improve websites and user experience of them anyway.

Mark Barry is staff writer for <a href="http://www.integritySEOexperts.co.uk/”>Integrity SEO Experts, a full-service SEO agency based in the North East of England.

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Super Easy Way to Find Your Competitors’ Top Google Keywords

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-logo.jpg” alt=”semrush” title=”semrush” width=”238″ height=”45″ class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-9546″ />Have you ever wondered which organic and AdWords keywords were driving the most <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic to your competitors’ websites from Google? I sure hope you have. But, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably guilty of running a lot of manual queries, inputting your results in Excel, and doing a significant amount of guessing. I’m sorry to say, that’s not the most efficient way to do things. It’s extremely tedious and time consuming. And, it can be done a lot easier than that. Luckily there are a number of keyword research tools available that scrape Google’s search results, aggregate the data, and make a number of automated calculations for you.

One of the simplest to use and most affordable tools is <a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/semrush” rel=”nofollow”>SEMrush.

What is SEMRush?

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-domain-summary.jpg” alt=”semrush google search engine <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic domain summary” title=”semrush google search engine <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic domain summary” width=”258″ height=”314″ class=”alignright size-full wp-image-9591″ />SEMRush is competitor research keyword tool with a regularly updated database of over 35 million of the most expensive keywords used to drive <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic to websites through Google Adwords and Google’s organic search results. You can use SEMRush to identify organic search and AdWords opportunities, as well as seeing which keywords are driving the most <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic to your competitors.

Here is a list of some of SEMRush’s key features:

• Identify which organic keywords are driving the most <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic to your competitors
• Identify which AdWords keywords are driving the most <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic to your competitors
• Identify a website’s top organic search competitors
• Identify a sites top AdWords competitors
• View a website’s unique Google AdWords ad copy
• Identify sites that buy ads for relevant keywords
• Identify potential sites to advertise on
• Identify the top ranking sites for specified keywords
• Identify related keyword opportunities

Google Keywords Reports

The organic and AdWords keywords reports allow you to analyze data for keywords, entire domains and specific URLs. Inputting a domain name or URL gives you an overall Google <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic summary for that site as well as a list of the top search queries it’s ranking for within the top 20 Google search results. Inputting a keyword gives you a summary of how much <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic you might expect to receive for a specific keyword, a list of the top search phrases related to it, and the top 20 organic search and AdWords competitors.

Domain Organic Keywords Report

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-domain-keywords.jpg” alt=”semrush organic keywords report for a domain” title=”semrush organic keywords report for a domain” width=”600″ height=”78″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9562″ />

In this report you get a list of keywords where the site ranks within the top 20 organic search results in Google, and these related keyword details:

• Site’s Google ranking for each keyword at time of data collection
• Average number of exact match queries for each key phrase in your local / chosen version of Google
• Average cost-per-click (CPC) of an AdWords ad for each search query
• Landing page URL that’s displayed in the top 20 Google search results for the key word
• Estimated percentage of <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic the site receives from Google for each key phrase compared with all other referring keyphrases
• Estimated cost% ratio
• Competition of advertisers using AdWords for each search term
• Number of search results returned by Google for each key phrase
• Search query trend over the last 12 months

I absolutely love the domain and URL reports because I’m primarily an organic search engine optimizer and they help me quickly identify all of the top keywords my competitors are ranking for and opportunities I’m currently missing. If you’re an AdWords expert, the AdWords Keyword and URL Reports are equally as helpful to the Organic Keywords Reports since they are nearly identical and show which Google AdWords keywords are sending the most <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic to your competitors.

Top Domain Competitors in Organic Search Results

This report gives you a list of sites that rank for the highest number of common keywords within the top 20 organic search results of Google.

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-competitors-organic.jpg” alt=”semrush top organic search competitors” title=”semrush top organic search competitors” width=”600″ height=”77″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9574″ />

For each website listed in this report, here is the associated information that is calculated and displayed in each column:

• Total number of common keywords between the sites within the top 20 Google results
• Number of keywords each site ranks for within the top 20 Google search results
• Estimated <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic each website receives for search queries it shows up for within the top 20 organic search results
• Estimated cost to purchase the same number of visitors
• Number of keyword queries the site shows up for in AdWords

This tool is great for helping you identify who your top competitors are and then digging into which keywords are sending them the most organic search <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic from Google.

Competitor Reports

Google AdWords Competitor Report

This report is very similar to the Organic Search Competitors report, but displays your top AdWords competitors.

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-competitors-adwords.jpg” alt=”semrush top google adwords competitors” title=”semrush top google adwords competitors” width=”600″ height=”75″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9605″ />

SEMRush Keyword Report

The SEMRush keyword report is helpful for identifying the potential value of any keyword by showing you the average CPC, advertiser competition ratio, average search volume and the total number results returned.

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-keyword-report.jpg” alt=”semrush keyword report” title=”semrush keyword report” width=”600″ height=”199″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9610″ />

In addition, the keyword report calculates a list of the top related phrases that might be of interest to you, as well as the top organic and AdWords competitors.

Other Reports

A few of the remaining major reports include:

• Google AdWords Ad Text Report – shows a list of your competitors’ Google AdWords ads
• Potential Ad Buyers – gives you a list of sites that buy ads for relevant keywords
• Potential Ad Sellers – show top sites in Google organic results for your AdWords keywords

Additional SEMRush Features

• Exportable reports – export to Excel, CSV
• Firefox add-on
• Order customizable reports
• API access

Pricing

<a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/semrush_pricing” rel=”nofollow”><img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/semrush-pricing.jpg” alt=”semrush price and plan comparison” title=”semrush price and plan comparison” width=”600″ height=”154″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9543″ />

<a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/semrush_pricing” rel=”nofollow”>SEMRush plans starts at $49/mo, compared to <a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/spyfu_pricing” rel=”nofollow”>SpyFu at $79/mo, <a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/keywordspy_pricing” rel=”nofollow”>KeywordSpy(<a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/keywordspy-promo-codes”>promo code) at $89.95/mo and Compete at $199/mo.

None of the above keyword analysis services are exactly alike, so it’s a good idea to research them all to see which tool is the best match for your specific needs.

Difference Between SEMRush Tool and Most Keyword Research Tools

Just in case you’re wondering; the major difference between using a tool like SEMRush and <a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/market-samurai-review”>Market Samurai(<a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/market-samurai-promo-codes”>promo code) for keyword research is that SEMRush identifies your top competitors for you by scraping the web, sorting that information in a database, calculating it, and making recommendations based on their own unique algorithm. Market Samurai’s keyword tool is simply an advanced interface to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool and <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic Estimator, that makes calculations on the fly and does not maintain a database of the top Google Keywords and search rankings. Market Samurai does a great job too, but it requires you to do more manual work when identifying your top competitors and keywords. It’s a good alternate if you don’t have the budget for SEMRush or another keyword spy tool.

Summary

PROS: Overall I think SEMRush is a great keyword research tool for analyzing your competitors search <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic and quickly identifying new opportunities in Google. I really like the layout of the site, navigation is straightforward and the reports are well organized. The PRO pricing is very good – it is the cheapest of their top competitors, but doesn’t include some of the advanced features a few of the other keyword tools do. Features such as: AdWords ad history reports, referring websites, affiliate ID tracking and email alerts.

CONS: I don’t really have any complaints about the site overall. However, there are a few details that are a bit confusing. “Phrase Match” reports apparently return “Exact Match” keywords from Google’s Keyword Tool, so the name of the report is a bit misleading. Also, it was difficult to understand how they are getting their estimated <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic volumes for keywords. Most of the keyword <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic volumes were somewhat close to the number I got when querying Google’s Keyword Tool directly, however some numbers didn’t make any sense to me at all. But that could just be a misunderstanding on my part, and not an actual statistical issue.

SEMRush is definitely a helpful tool for spying on your competitors and finding profitable new keyword opportunities. You can test out some limited features for free.

So…What do you think about SEMRush?

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The right SEO tactic

Choosing the right SEO tactic for low and high competition keywords

It all depends on the keywords that you need to get high rankings for. Keywords with low competition require different tactics than keywords with high competition.
Lets look at long keyword phrases with little competition. For example, if you want to be listed for the search term “Affiliate marketing books from Amazon”. It is easy to optimize one of your web pages for that search term because the competition for that search term is not high; in fact only 5 other websites use that keyword phrase. You will not need many inbound links to get high rankings for that keyword phrase.

Now the more competitive the targeted keyword is, the higher the effect inbound links will have on the position of your website in the search results.

Optimizing the contents of any web page is essential for high search engine rankings. That’s how you tell the search engines that the web page is relevant to that keyword phrase. As more than one web page will have been optimized for that keyword phrase then the web page with the best inbound links will get the highest position in the search results. Note I said best not most.

For example, the website www.BBC.com has 21,800 inbound links according to Google. They have a lot of inbound links, but they do not rank for the keyword “Affiliate marketing books from Amazon” because the website has not been optimized for that keyword phrase.

If you need to get high rankings in the search engines for a keyword phrase, the first step is to optimize one of your web pages for that keyword phrase. Then work on the links that point to the optimized web page to outrank other websites that have been optimized for the same keyword:
For example to out rank the top site for the keyword phrase “Affiliate marketing books” there are only 13200 other sites going for that keyword phrase but the top site has over 18100 inbound links but number 10 on Google only has 1750 inbound links. So it not impossible to rank on page 1 for this keyword phrase.

Google Caffeine

How to Improve Your SEO Rankings with Google Caffeine

Caffeine changes the SEO game, the update is good news for webmasters who understand the power of content. With a lessened emphasis on backlinks, Google Caffeine rewards those who publish quality, relevant, and fresh text.

If you are to make only one change to your SEO strategy this year it should be a renewed focus on content, which will generate both short-term and long-term results. In the short term, you will enjoy a surge of traffic from being at the top of Google’s “latest results,” and in the long-term, you will continue to build your relevancy and authority in Google for better SEO ranking search results.

Google Caffeine is not about long term seo ranking, it’s about real time results. So if your content is up to date and the current trend then it will rank on page 1. It may last an hour or a week. Who knows.

What will get you a Google Caffeine’s page one

Real-time search results are what the Caffeine update is about. The traditional top results that a hard won for will be knocked off by the “latest results,” which are made up of the most recent blog posts, press releases, social network updates, and news stories that are related to the search term.

Each time you publish a blog post, submit a press release, or Tweet, you may just appear at the very top of Google’s search results for a short time. This may give you a short burst of natural traffic from the “latest results” right into your website.

How to Take Advantage of Caffeine’s Real-Time Search

Real-time search presents an incredible opportunity for your website to enjoy the top spot on Google, even if it is only short term. So compose fresh blog posts, and upon publication, your website may appear at the top of the relevant search results.

Make sure your website is not decaffeinated.

Even before Caffeine, content was number one in the SEO world. But with the introduction of Caffeine and its emphasis on content, writing fresh and original text on your website and blog becomes even more important. The purpose of the Caffeine update is to generate more accurate, relevant, and timely search results and Google can only achieve their goals by placing a heavier emphasis on content.

Duplicate content

Duplicate content can mean SEO doom

Identical content that is posted in multiple sites can mean certain doom for that’s content’s search ranking.

Search engines work hard to avoid duplicate content appearing on a given page of search results. Google does offer users the option of duplicate content with its “similar results have been omitted” link displayed below results that have duplicates. Search engines use an automated process to index web pages and select one from among the duplicates to display, and discard the rest.

The search engine war against duplicated content is both an effort to provide more relevant search results to users and an indirect effort to preserve the originality of internet content, which is often copied pasted back onto websites.

Suggestions for avoiding issues of duplicate content on sites undergoing search engine optimization (SEO) are the use of canonical tags or the new tools that Google has recently released to allow for legitimate content duplication.