8 questions to ask to help get your brand messages across in Google
Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Official Google announcement on sitelinks
Folks have been discussing Google’s experiments with Google Sitelinks through August, e.g. http://www.hallam.biz/blog/2011/08/12-google-sitelinks-2011.html but yesterday we started seeing this more consistently on all Google searches and now Google has made the announcement above.
If you’re not familiar with Sitelinks, they are the listing of extra links below the brand main site description when you search on a brand name. We have a briefing on sitelinks which shows the previous simple format of just 8 links.
This example shows they now take up much more of the page with 8 to 12 alternatives and include more detailed descriptions:
Marketing implications of sitelink change
Well for almost all sites, the most important searches…
Our review of SEO Spider from Screaming Frog
Hi! In this post I wanted to introduce you to a great new tool for SEO specialists and web content managers. My fellow Smart Insights commentator Dan Barker introduced me to this and recommends it. It's a tool that has really built on the features available in the Xenu Link Sleuth and taken them to a new level for people involved with Search Engine Optimisation.
Those familiar with Xenu will know how difficult it is to find similar software, especially if like me you use a Macbook. If you don't know Xenu, there's an excellent review by Tom Critchlow of how to use Xenu for SEO. So, onto my review...
Introducing - Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Key differences to Xenu
Mac friendly :-)
The tool really makes use of the crawl data to give you relevant on-site optimisation advice & alerts - problems you need to look…
A review of Majestic SEO Site Explorer
In a previous post I compared what I think are the 5 best tools to review backlinks. These show the strength of your all important backlinks against competitors. In this review we took a brief look at the Majestic SEO Backlink history which we find useful for comparing clients against competitors at a top-level. But since this time Majestic now have a new tool - the Majestic Site Explorer.
Now into its 4th month of public Beta, for me, Majestic Site Explorer is a really useful tool to use when completing top level reviews of competitors. I'd also recommend it can be use d for regulary monthly or quarterly health checks for your own business and the SEO efforts of the agency. It's often compared to the similar and I think, better known tool available from SEOmoz (www.opensitexplorer.com). So I thought it…
SEOMoz have updated their search engine ranking factors compilation which they publish every 2 years. We think this is essential reading for everyone in digital marketing, not just SEO specialists since it shows how to best get success in SEO and what to target your agency on. In 2009 the top 5 ranking factors were:
Keyword focussed anchor text from external links
External link popularity
Diversity of external link sources
Keyword use anywhere in title tags
Trustworthiness of Domain based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains
*Source - SEOMOZ
Here are the key charts of ranking factors from the report [Editors note: I use this to show that page Keywords are relatively unimportant compared to anchor text and domain authority] :
While early days in the research the 2011 update from SEOMOZ is formed from surveying 132 SEO professionals and correlating data…
New research shows why Number One in Search matters and suggests how we should report search effectiveness
Naturally Number One is the position all businesses want for their keywords. But, it's not so easy to achieve in practice: anyone managing a website will understand the joys & heartaches of trying to get this ranking in Google.
I wanted to flag up this data since it quantifies how important the Number One position is and has implications for how you should be setting targets and reporting on SEO for key generic head terms and long tail terms too. I've also linked to a spreadsheet to help you apply this.
This new research is also timely since it's some time since good quality data on the clicks / importance of ranking position has been released. Can you remember when AOL accidentally published their data in 2006.
The ranking…
How can I see my rankings in Google? 5 tools to consider.
This is the question we often hear as I'm sure you do! Our answer is that rankings aren't where you should start when reviewing how well your SEO is working. We have showed how it's best to start with your analytics which will show you actual traffic, leads and sales generated through your SEO efforts. But at the end of the day, marketers still want to know their rankings and rightly so - they do provide a benchmark even in these days of personalised, real-time search. These software or web services report on your position in different search engines, in different countries, for different search terms. The five tools we recommend considering include some of the best known, most widely used ranking tools and a…
Alerting you to 3 new tools: link profiles, query parameters and search CTR changes
Value: [rating=5]
Our commentary: As a Digital Marketer, it's great to see companies like Google offering free well featured tools to allow you to manage your web presence through them. Google Webmaster tools while still basic is constantly evolving and this month is no different.
Over the last week Google has announced several improvements to existing features, the first being the "links to your site" area, the second is an improvement to identifying / managing query parameters on your website & last but not least updates to the search queries report.
1 Links to your website:
While it is still a very basic feature (when compared to Open Site Explorer & Majestic SEO for example) this upgrade does offer great insights to your back links, from volume of links to specific pages through to anchor text analysis. See the full…
Google Webmaster Tools - A guide for marketers and site owners
What is Google Webmaster tools (GWT)
Google Webmaster Tools is a system built by Google that gives you feedback on your website from how Google sees it. It shows everything from phrases used to find your site through to pages it can"€™t distinguish or access through internal and external links.
Why is it important?
With Google accounting for over 90% of searches in the UK and many other European countries, any insights that Google provides about the effectiveness of your website are worth reviewing. Google Webmaster Tools alerts you to how Google sees your website & alerts you to problems it finds..
Online businesses often overlook the basic aspects of natural search management, but with this simple interface you can quickly see if you are ticking all the boxes.
About this marketers guide
The name "€œGoogle Webmaster Tools"€ is unfortunate since it suggests it"€™s just a…
A new tag to manage International / Multilingual websites from Google
Value: [rating=5]
Our commentary: A new asset this week for large multilingual sites or for those thinking of targeting new audiences was launched by the Google Webmaster team. It's great to see a constant stream of new features recently from this team.
The new feature is a language specifc tag "hreflang" aimed at websites / businesses that target users in various languages but under one domain (usually by using subdomains or folders - e.g. http://es.example.com or www.example.com/es/). There are often complicated issues with duplicate content with such setups that this new tool allows you to manage more efficiently. This is the format for the "hreflang" directive which will have to implemented within a CMS so will typically require bespoke coding.
<link rel="€alternate"€ hreflang="a-different-language" href="http://url-of-the-different-language-page" />
The best example within this post from the Google Webmaster blog being centred around a spanish page where…
Using Google Analytics to Audit and Improve SEO
Here is a post explaining a simple way to add some extra info to your Google Analytics data to help improve your natural search traffic. In this post I hope to show you...
An explanation of what's missing from Google Analytics in terms of actionable SEO data.
How to fix it.
A free excel template so that you can play about with it yourself.
A tutorial to accompany the excel spreadsheet.
The actions to take as a result of the data.
Some suggestions for extending this further.
(more…)…
