The Best of SEO 2012
Is your SEO taking advantage of “local searches”?
There is a large chunk of our Google searches display Google Places listings – and consumers are taking notice.
SEOmoz did some eye-tracking studies on Google’s SERP search engine results page.
The results show that users heavily gravitate toward Places’ listings, whether mixed into organic lists, concentrated in a group, or even listed in the middle of the page. If your business needs local listings, concentrate on scoring a seat at Google Places.
First ensure that your correct business details, location etc. are listed in as many reputable sources as possible across the Internet. As always, consistency is the thing. If you write “Gdns.” instead of Gardens or “Sq” instead of Square on your Google Places page, make sure your other listings have the exact same address.
Google Places page optimization
Just like your website, make sure your Places page is properly optimized. Include categories that match exactly, and point your Places page back to a city or place specific landing page if required.
Reviews
Google will only display reviews from Google, but getting reviews from others like Yelp, or Trip Advisor will help increase your presence.
You Can’t Have Search Without Social Networking
Social links and mentions such as Twitter shares, Facebook likes and social bookmarking heavily influence today’s search rankings. Essentially, search results are personalized for each person. With any SEO campaign you put into motion, include a social aspect to it to facilitate information sharing. Today we must think of People, not crawl Robots, When Optimizing Keywords
People search in Google because they have a question
Anticipate the questions — whether about the best style of graphic design or where to get the best backlinks provider. Your keywords, backlinks, shares, tweets and the content on your pages should reflect the answers to those questions. Keyword research is tedious, but it’s arguably the most important aspect of SEO. Transition away from thinking of keywords like data, and put more of an emphasis on the person who will be typing in that keyword.
Content Links Are King
Google is not stupid — it can spot paid and spam links. For the most effective long-term SEO strategy, move the focus back to great content, both on your website and across other sites. Guest blogging is great, for instance, but to get a leg up on your competition, target blogs that are not a direct match to your website or project.
Check the websites back-end: Schema.org, Microformats and Rich Snippets
The three main search engines; Google, Yahoo and Bing got together to develop Schema.org, a set of website standards that will tell search engines what your site is about, making it easier for those engines to read the site’s data and index accordingly.
By using rich snippets, for example, you’re able to tell Google what information to feature in SERPs; product reviews and prices, upcoming events, etc. The added data will increase your click-through rate because users are able to preview more information about the link before they commit to a click and visit.
It don’t mean a thing if it aint got that Data
Whether you’re a one-man SEO show for your own site, or working in an agency with several clients, your site needs to see results. While ranking reports of keywords remain great indicators of progress, personalized searches make it difficult to get the most accurate readings. Also, when Google defaulted to “private searches for users” when signed into their Google account, the company made it harder to track how people get to your website.
Start relying more on simple key performance indicators KPIs to show results, for instance, the number of landing pages you have, the bounce rate of those pages, and the number of keywords driving traffic to each of those landing pages. Google Analytics displays all of this data.What are some other things you see that are affecting searches, and what are you doing to improve your rankings in these areas?
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