I find this to be true online and offline – I read a lot of industry blog posts and attend many workshops and conferences and people are typically quite passionate about what they do; and that passion frequently translates into contributions to the rest of us in the online marketing community.

Nowadays, as an SEO Strategist on Team Portent, the bulk of my day-to-day professional work involves a lot of, well, SEO-related diagnosis and recommendations. And just like you wouldn’t send a carpenter or a plumber out to do a job without a proper set of tools, we online marketers need tools that help us to be more productive than we would be otherwise. During my day-to-day work, I use a combination of Portent’s stellar internal toolset and a host of other tools as well.

Some time ago I started keeping a list of tools on an Excel spreadsheet because it’s just too hard to keep everything in my head (I named the file my “forget-me-not” list of tools). I read a lot of industry blogs every day and if someone mentions some tool and it seems like something I can use now or in the future, I log it on my spreadsheet for future investigation or use.

So now I have this giant list of tools that I want to share with you now.

Cut the Talk – It’s Time to Rock

You probably already know about many or most of these tools, but I’d bet that you’ll find at least one cool tool here you’ve never used before – and that will make it worth your time to scan the list or bookmarking this page for future reference.

I’ve broken this down to logical-to-me categories, but you may prefer a different organizational scheme. Also, it’s true that many of these tools “fit” into more than one category and can be used for multiple tasks, so there is that to keep in mind. I’ll also mention that you may find my extremely short descriptions inadequate (please be kind, I typically would enter the tool to my spreadsheet with some hastily-typed or copy/paste from the site to cue me as to what the tool could be used for). But setting all that aside, what’s important is that someone, hopefully you, will find this list useful.

Last notes: I’ve been keeping this list just for my own personal benefit, and I’m not being compensated in any way by any tool or resource you see on this list. My descriptions are purposely very short making it easy for you to scan this list. So without further ado, here’s my insanely large list of tools. Want to download the spreadsheet? No problem, do that at the bottom of this post.

Categories (click to jump to that specific list of tools)

Competition Research

Content Strategy

Conversion Rate Optimization

Design

International SEO

Keyword Research

Link Building Earning

Local SEO

Online Reputation Management

PPC

Rank Checking

Site Analysis

Social Media

Structured Markup

Miscellaneous Tools & Toolsets

Competition Research

Sure, you don’t want to “take your eye off the ball” with respect to your site and overall digital marketing strategy – but you don’t want to be caught sleeping either while your competitors pass you by (excuse the mixed metaphors). You can learn a lot from what your competitors are doing well or even doing poorly when it comes to online marketing. I recommend you do periodic research on your competition and keep your finger on the pulse of your industry at large.

AdWords Keyword Planner

Use Competitor URLs in Keyword Planner tool, review suggested keyword groups and keywords.

Ahrefs

Batch Analysis: very fast overview of backlinks & social metrics for any list of URLs you enter.

Fresh Web Explorer

Where are your competitors being mentioned? Are there feeds that highlight their content frequently? FWE is a good tool to build up your outreach list.

Market Samurai

Top 10 SERP comparison module outputs a color-coded grid of various key ranking metrics.

Mozbar

Browser toolbar – provides wealth of metrics & data on web pages and SERP listings.

MozCheck

Bulk URL checker to grab Moz stats on multiple URLs via SERPs scrape/download.

Open Link Profiler

“The freshest backlinks, for free”.

Open Site Explorer

Get most linked-to URLs for popular content research – many, many more uses.

Reverse Internet

Serious competitive intelligence including finding all GA accounts!

SEMrush

Use the domain vs. domain tool to see what keywords competitors rank for with associated metrics. View Competitor keywords, ad copy, organic or paid.

SEOmoz

“On-page report card” – grade a page for a Keyword.

SERPIQ

Analyze competition and discover keywords.

Similar Sites

Easily find similar websites.

Similar Web

Via Avinash at Mozcon – use to get a *&%$load of data on your site and other’s sites.

Site Alerts

Instant insights on any website: can also get email subscription to alerts.

Web Me Up

Backlink profile checker, not free.

Woorank

Get a quick overview of site metrics.

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Content Strategy

Content Gems

Quickly find and share the most valuable content in one easy-to-use platform (paid tool).

Content Strategy Generator Tool (updated)

This very cool tool from Richard Baxter and the Builtvisible team helps you plan your content strategy intelligently, using keyword research and estimating your audience size. Their description of the tool is “Easily consolidate trending news from across the web, and find inspiration for your research topics quickly and easily”.

Contently

Content “story” creation service via Mike King.

Copyscape

Copyscape serves both as a plagiarism checker and a duplicate-content checker. Great to use if your content has been distributed across the web.

Enigma

Navigate the world of public data.

FAQ Fox

Find questions your target demographic is talking about online.

Fresh Web Explorer

FWE allows you to check on or keep track of a set of terms over time, and helps you get a sense for what type of content gets a lot of mentions, shares, and links. Many more uses, features keep getting added.

Google Public Data

Drawing on vast public databases, Google public data offers a great starting point for content research, infographics, and more.

Headline Analyzer

Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.

Similar Page Checker

Use this tool to check for duplicate content issues. The Similar Page Checker will give you a score of how closely the HTML of two pages resemble each other.

Speechpad

Transcription service.

Trend Hunter

Paid tool.

Triberr

A community of bloggers and influencers come together to read and share great content.

Wiki Mind Map

Create mind map out of Wikipedia topics & articles.

Content & Headline Idea Generator

Enter a subject (or topic or keywords) and get all kinds of titles and ideas.

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Conversion Rate Optimization

ClickTale

Heatmaps.

Formisimo

Form Analytics.

Inspectlet

Heatmaps, screencapture.

iPerceptions

Get visitor feedback.

Kampyle

Get visitor feedback.

Kiss Metrics

CRO, A/B testing, analytics.

Mouseflow

Live click tracking.

Optimizely

A/B testing.

Survey Monkey

Get visitor feedback.

Visual Website Optimizer

A/B & MV testing.

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Design

Canva

“Amazingly simple graphic design for blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more”.

HTML Color Picker

Use the online image color picker right to select a color and get the html Color Code of this pixel.

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International SEO

Flang

Hreflang testing tool.

Hfreflang Generator

Hreflang tag generator from Aleyda Solis.

HREFLANG Sitemap Tool

Create HREFLANG Sitemap.

Impersonal Me

Search de-personalized, via Portent SEO Kaitlin McMichael.

International Geo-Surfing

Search international, get SERPs.

Lexipedia

Displays a handy little chart with every definition of a word and synonyms. It’s a lexicon-builder’s dream.

Search From

Simulate using Google Search from different location or device or perform a search with custom search settings – useful for searching Google as if you were somewhere else and for SEO & SEA testing.

Search Latte

Build Google searches in any combination of Google supported top level domain, country and language.

Word Reference

Online translator.

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Keyword Research

AdWords Keyword Tools

Generate keywords from a seed keywords or enter a list to obtain search volume and other data points.

Google Analytics

Look at the keywords that drive traffic – especially historical data before the onset of (not provided). Matched Search Queries – the keywords a searcher typed before clicking on an AdWords ad.

Google Correlate

Find searches that correlate with real-world data.

Google Search

Look at related searches at bottom.

Google Suggest

Don’t hit enter when you start searching. Thanks to Wil Reynolds.

Google Trends

Get idea of up or down trend & also look at hot trends for new ideas.

Google Webmaster Tools queries

Look for striking distance keywords. Export for further analysis in Excel or other tools.

Keyword Eye

Free section requires signup.

Keyword Spy

Organic & paid info. Recently added killer backlink analysis.

Keyword Tool

Like Ubersuggest: get 750 google keyword suggestions for free.

Lexipedia

Create “wonder wheels” of related terms – hover for definitions.

Local Keyword Tool

Local SEO keyword research tool – enter Zip & KEYWORD, get list of KEYWORD plus local cities.

Market Samurai

Research a list of keywords you enter or enter a seed keyword to generate related keywords; huge amount of associated metrics is available.

Merge Words

Concatenation tool.

Meta Glossary

Get definitions and related terms for keyword research.

Moz Keyword Difficulty Tool

Keyword difficulty tool.

Moz On-page Grader

Grade a page for a keyword.

SEMrush

Enter site: get keyword list export, organic or paid

SEO Chat

Keyword suggestion tool.

SEO Chat Keyword Suggest Tool

Like Ubersuggest, you can generate lists of related keywords using a root term. Need to play with this, check it out.

Social mention

Download top keywords; use wordle/compose to create word cloud to visualize. Hat tip to Ben Lloyd.

Sonar Solo

Visualize social trends.

Spyfu

Organic & paid info.

Suggester

Suggester is another free tool like Ubersuggest where you can input a seed term and generate variations – download to CSV is desired.

Tag Crowd

Make your own tag cloud from any text.

Topsy

Enter keyword, look at trends & spikes.

Trend Hunter

Trend Hunter.

Ubersuggest

Generate list of keywords from seed; enter into AdWords tool for volume etc.

Wordle

Create word clouds.

Wordstream

Generate keywords – paid tool.

Wordstream Free Keyword Tools

In addition to its paid offerings, Wordstream offers a suite of free keyword tools offering access to thousands of keyword suggestions.

Wordtracker

Generate keywords – paid tool.

Yahoo Glimmer

“An RDF Search Engine”.

Yelp Trends

Yelp Trends tool.

YouTube AutoSuggest

Just like Google Autocomplete.

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Link Building Earning

Author Crawler

You’ll end up with a report allowing you to sort your backlinks by the social standing of the authors of those links.

Advanced Search Operator Auto Generator

Incredible: enter a keyword, it outputs links to Google SERPS of your keyword plus various advanced search operators.

Banana Tag

Email Tracking service, via Ross Hudgens.

Bookmarklet – Domain Hunter Plus

Checks for broken links on a page. Browser plugin.

Broken Link Check

Checks a site for broken links.

Broken Link Finder

Garrett French’s tool – Citation Labs.

Broken Link Index

Scrapes the web for broken links based on keyword input!

Bulk Doman Authority Checker

Check DA of up to 200 domains at once.

Buzzstream tools

Various tools & uses.

Domain Hunter Plus

This magic extension for Chrome not only helps you find important broken links, but also tells you if the links point to an available domain.

Easel.ly

Free tools for creating and sharing inforgraphics. The templates allow anyone to create a professional-looking graphic.

Email Format

Find email address via domain name entry.

Free Email Verifier

Verify email addresses.

Fresh Web Explorer

Find recent mentions where you aren’t being linked-to.

HARO

Help a reporter out.

Image Raider

Automated reverse image search! Search who’s using your image, request a link from them.

Infogr.am

A great free Infographics resource that allows you to easily create graphics and data visualizations.

Keyword Typo Generator

Create domain misspellings (add TLD) add to bulk backlink checker like Majestic or Ahrefs, find links that point to you then go and ’em.

Link Search Tool

Enter keyword, generates clickable advanced search operators!

LinkRisk

Mine our database and identify opportunity for content placement whether as a link builder, an affiliate or a website owner.

Linkstant

Discover new links immediately, even as they’re being placed (via Mike King).

MailTester.com

Need to send an email to an untested address, but you don’t want to spam them? Check it first with this mail tester to verify.

Majestic SEO

See competitor’s link profile.

MyBlogGuest

Community of guest bloggers.

Open Site Explorer

Look at competitor’s links for good opportunities.

Outdated Content Finder

Find outdated content, build fresh, and ask for links.

PyScape

Grab OSE data via API with this tool.

Scrapebox

Scrape, check, ping, post!

Search From

View all your tweets on one page.

Tagul

Word cloud tool – use to see influencer names.

Twitter Archiver

Via Richard Baxter, Mozcon 2013: twitter archiving Google spreadsheet.

Vsnap

Send email with a 1 min video (via Mike King).

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Local SEO

Best Darn Local SEO Client Questionnaire

It really is.

Census.gov Tools

US Census tools for audience demographics.

Generate local AdWords and Keyword Lists Tool

Your Local SEO not-so-secret weapon.

Moz Local

“In one easy step, Moz Local ensures your business listings are correct, consistent, and visible across the web so search engines and new customers can find you.”

Google Gadgets Driving Directions Widget For Your Webpage

Google Gadgets driving directions widget for your webpage.

Google Map Maker

Among other things, Google Map Maker allows you to contribute to public map information, which may be shared and incorporated into Google Maps.

Google Places for Business Category Tool

Google Places for Business Category Tool.

Google+ My Business Page Finder

Michael Cottam’s Google+ My Business Page Finder.

Whitespark Offline Conversion Tracker

Offline Conversion Tracker

OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool

OSHA Standard Industrial Category Tool.

Plagiarism Checker

Plagiarism Checker

Schema Creator

Create HTML with schema.org microdata.

USPS ZIP Code Tool

You’ll need a specific address, so be ready for that.

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Online Reputation Management

Complaint Search

Search all complaint websites at once.

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PPC

Note: although I’ve been AdWords certified for years and have run some small campaigns, I don’t necessarily consider myself a “PPC guy” or expert (we have those here, though) – so my list of PPC tools is not particularly extensive, to put it nicely. Feel free to send me your non-commercial suggestions to add here via Twitter (@dportney) – thanks!

Unbounce

Landing Page Creator.

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Rank Checking

The relative importance of checking rankings is debatable. In fact, it was at @SEMpdx SearchFest industry conference where I heard my first full-blown rant from @ConradSaam about the uselessness of checking rank (he recommended focusing on traffic and conversions) – that was 4 years ago and before the Google Hummingbird algorithm update and before Google started rewriting queries based on perceived user intent. I’ve used and still use rank checkers, but the effectiveness of SEO strategies based on keyword ranking really seems to be dying if not already dead. That said, here’s some tools I’ve used:

Rank Checker for Firefox

This light and easy desktop tool checks rankings with the click of a button. Quick, easy and free.

Advanced Web Ranking

Actually, AWR does much, much more than just rank tracking and is definitely worth checking out (this is a paid tool).

Authority Labs

I haven’t used AL in awhile, but have used their service and it’s generally very good – I’m sure they’ve made improvements since (this is a paid tool).

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Site Analysis

I love doing site analysis. Whether it’s a relatively quick SEO Triage, a comprehensive SEO Audit, or even a full-blown SEO Strategy Playbook, conducting a thorough site analysis and providing recommendations is one of my favorite tasks in SEO-land. Here are some tools that I use and that will make your analyses faster, easier, and more comprehensive.

Aardvark bookmarklet

Mouse over page elements to see HTML data like div classes & IDs.

Backlink Over Optimization Analyzer

Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool.

Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing users will thank you.

Builtwith.com

Get an overview of site metrics.

Check All the Links on a Website

“Find Broken Links, Redirects & Site Crawl Tool.”

Compression / gzip test tool

A simple online web page compression / deflate / gzip test tool.

CSS Sprites

Create CSS Sprites Online.

Developer Toolbar for Firefox

Many use cases – a Swiss Army Knife of tools.

Fiddler2

Website Debugger.

Foxyseo toolbar

Get various site metrics.

Frobee Robots.txt Checker

Many robots.txt files contain hidden errors not easily visible to humans. Run your file through this tool and you never know what you’ll discover.

Google Page Speed Insights

Tools, data, and insights to improve your page speed.

Google Penalty Checker

Google Penalty Checker tool.

Google Plus 1 Checker

Google Plus One Checker in Bulk!

Gtmetrix

Pagespeed & Yslow grade, great report!

Gzip Check

Check if Gzip is enabled.

HTML Markup Validator

W3C HTML markup validator.

HTTP compression and conditional GET test tool

Some web servers enable HTTP compression and conditional GET to reduce bandwidth usage with browsers that support these technologies. Use this tool to test whether a webpage supports HTTP compression and conditional GET.

HTTP Compression Check

Check if compression is on.

IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit

IIS Search Engine Optimization Toolkit.

Image & Link Analyzer

Check All Links or Images on a Page.

META SEO Inspector

Inspect Meta Data via Chrome Plugin.

Mobile Test Me

Check how a site looks on various mobile devices.

Moonsy

Various tools – check dmoz, backlinks, DA etc.

Neil Patels Website Analyzer

Get various stats on your site and where you might make improvements.

On-Page Optimization Tool

Check the Important SEO Content on Your Webpage.

Page Speed Tool

Check the Speed of your site and your competitors.

Pingdom

Pingdom offers an entire suite of speed tools to help analyze page load, DNS issues, and connectivity.

Qualys SSL Labs

Enter domain to test SSL Certs and get a report.

Rex Swain’s HTTP Viewer

See URL HTTP status.

Robots.txt Checke

Use robots best practices and discover hidden errors in your robots.txt files that may cause search engine crawling problems.

Screenshots dot com

Better than way back machine – easy way to quickly see past versions of sites.

SearchMetrics

SEO, Social, Rankings, keyword and backlinks report tool

SEO Crawler

Crawler – cloud based, allows export – max 250 URLs – plus other tools.

SEO Quake

Get key metrics & data quickly – use plugin or toolbar.

Similar Web

Via Avinash at Mozcon – use to get a sh*tload of data on your and other’s sites

SPDYCheck.org

Check if a website properly supports the SPDY protocol, the super-fast HTTP replacement, and troubleshoot any problems with the configuration.

Sprite Me

Create CSS Sprites out of background image using bookmarklet

Sprite Pad

Create CSS Sprites – drag and drop interface

Spy On Web

You Can Disclose Websites With The Same Google AdSense Code, Google Analytics Code, IP Address etc.

SSL Server Test

Analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server on the public Internet

URI Valet

A great tool for digging into server headers, canonical information, analyzing redirect problems and more.

Wayback Machine

Want to see the history of your website or your competitor’s site? The Wayback Machine allows you to step back in time and track important changes.

Web Page Test

Page Speed Tool via Ian

Woorank

Get a quick overview of site metrics

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Social Media

Circle Count

Google Plus Analytics

Facebook Debugger

Debug your OG tags

Facebook Power Editor

Facebook Power Editor Download page

Find People On Plus

The ultimate Google+ directory that’s great for research, outreach, and link building. Sort by keywords, profession, country, and more.

Follwerwonk

Find influencers; competitive research.

Gplus data

Google Plus trends and stats.

Hashtagify

Search and find the best twitter hash tags.

Hootsuite

Create tabs to listen on a particular topic or hashtag

Know Your Meme

Internet Meme Database

Knowem.com

Check for if your brand is available across multiple social sites

Meme Generator

Easy way to generate those images with text at top and bottom like “what if I told you…”

Pinterest Rich Pin Validator

Test structured markup and get approval in same process (per Cyrus’ Moz post)

SharedCount

Want to know how any piece of content was shared socially across the major services? This is the tool to use.

SharedCount API

Harnessing the combined statistics of Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and more, the SharedCount API puts a ton of social data at your fingertips.

Social Authority API

How much reach and social authority do your followers have? How about the people you’re trying to connect with? The free Social Authority API will tell you.

Social Crawlytics

ID competitors most shared content

Social Sites Image Size Template

Complete data on all image sizes for major social media sites

Sonar Solo

Visualize social trends

Twitter Land

Social media analytics

Twitter Validation Tool

First submit domain (per Cyrus’ Moz post) – then check URL

Twitteronomy

Analytics and more for Twitter via Matt McGee glowing recommendation.

Structured Markup

Good Relations

Good relations snippet generator

Google Data Highlighter

Use to grab HTML Markup

Google Plus Schema Creator

Google Plus Schema Creator

Google Structured Data Testing Tool

If you use Schema.org microformats or any other type of structured data, this tool will verify your markup.

Schema Creator

Everyone loves using Schema.org, but the microformats are difficult to write by hand. This generator from the folks at Raven simplifies the task.

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Miscellaneous Tools & Toolsets

Ontolo – Extract Unique Hostnames

Extract unique hostnames

Ontolo – Remove Dupe Hostnames

Remove duplicate hostnames

Scraper Tool (Desktop)

Desktop scraper / data harvester

Seer Toolbox

SEER opened up its internal toolbox for everyone in the world to use. These are the same tools used in-house at SEER, and they rock.

SEO Automatic

Lots of great tools here

Small SEO Tools

All kinds of tools to choose from, pretty cool!

Virante SEO Tools

Virante offers a number of high quality SEO tools to the public. These are often the same tools developed for the Virante team, opened up for public use.

A/B Test Calculator

Creates a bell curve.

Aleyda Solis’ Tools List

Aleyda Solis’ Tools List.

CloudFlare

How do they make CloudFlare free? It works both as a CDN and a security service to provide your website with speed and safety.

Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML

Despite the rise of Google Docs, Word still dominates much of the world. Copying and pasting has always been a hurdle, but this tool makes it easy.

Dingus Markdown to Markup

Convert HTML markup to markdown – via Matthew Henry at Portent.

Evernote

Keep stuff in the cloud, notes, screenshots, etc.

Free download tool

We help to download files from many popular sites.

Google Local Search Weather

Like MozCast – Daily Ranking Changes for Google Places for Business.

Google Page Speed Service

Singed up several times, never heard back.

Google Play URL Builder

Link tagging for Google Play Apps.

Google Scraper Report

Report if a site has scraped you and is outranking you too.

Google URL Removal Tool

Remove outdated content from the search results, public tool.

Internet Marketing Ninjas SEO Tools

The Ninjas are some of the best SEOs and online marketers out there, and they’ve put some of their best tools online for free.

IP Address Range Tool

Creates regex for IP address range.

ITTT (If This Then That)

If this then that – general usage.

List of Tools

List of tools on OnlineSales.co.uk

MozCast

Look at SERPs volatility.

Nerdy Data

Search code online!

Newsle

News story notification service, free.

Page2RSS

Turn any URL into an RSS feed – use with IFTTT.

Pixabay

Free images!

Ranks.nl

Great toolset here.

Remove Duplicate Items

Ontolo offers a suite of link building software and a few helpful productivity tools for link builders. The remove duplicates tool solves a common problem.

Scraper for Chrome

If you’ve never scraped a webpage, you’re missing out. Scraper for Chrome puts the power of simple web scraping in your hands without the need for code.

Secure Referer Quick Check

This web page shows your secure (i.e. HTTPS) referrer.

SEO Automatic

Bulk status code response checker.

SEO automatic toolbar

Browser toolbar – various uses.

SEO Book Toolbar

Browser toolbar for SEO.

SERP Snippet Optimization Tool

Preview SERP snippet live while writing it.

SERPS.com

Look at SERPs volatility.

Sitemap Generators

Google offers a slew of free, top-notch sitemap generators. Most of these live on your server and generate new sitemaps automatically.

Talk Walker Alerts

Like Google Alerts.

Text Expander

Expand text like MS Word autocomplete.

User Agent String dot com

Shows your user agent string.

What’s My Info

Get your complete browser information.

Yahoo Pipes

A great mashup tool that combines different feeds into content and other magical creations. Used for link building and whatever you can dream of.

Caption Tube

Free and easy resource used to create captions for YouTube. Helps with usability and offers viewers a readable transcript.

Screencast-O-Matic

One-click screen capture recording on Windows or Mac computers with no install for FREE!

Video Embed Generator

Create custom embed code for video to include a link: via Phil Nottingham.

Wistia

Video hosting.

LongURL

Expand a shortened URL.

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Conclusion

You can greatly improve your efficiency and productivity by using these tools – that certainly has been my experience. I’m confident that you’ll find at least one tool on this list that will be beneficial to you. If you want to download an Excel spreadsheet containing all of these tools you, grab that here. I’m also confident you’ll know of a tool or two that is not listed here that you think should be, so feel free to share those with all of us in the comments below.

The post My (Insanely Large) List of SEO Tools & Other Useful Resources appeared first on Portent.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wonder who writes up the documentation for Google. When they first announced the rel=author tag and Authorship configuration procedure on one of Google’s 11 blogs that I subscribe to, I jumped right on it and devoured the information and the process they described.

Then I read it again… and again. And I felt pretty stupid because it seemed really confusing. But despite that I pressed on and managed to bumble through the steps and get the whole thing up and running on Google+ and one of my websites.

Then I needed a cigarette and a nap. And I don’t even smoke.

Oh – I should back up for a minute here: I’m assuming you know what the rel=author tag and Google Authorship is and why it’s super-duper important. If you’re not up to speed on that, I suggest you go read Mark Traphagen’s excellent post about all that here. Mark’s a very sharp guy and he’s been making Google Authorship a bit of a pet project, so you can’t go wrong there. And he’s a really nice guy to boot. So go read that and meet me back here.

Okay, so whether Mark’s post cleared things up for you or not, let’s press on together because things will all make sense by the end of this post.

The future of Internet marketing: REVEALED

I mentioned that Google Authorship is super-duper important for you to set up. The writing is already on the wall for the future of internet marketing. How so? Google (a publicly traded company, let’s not forget) was publicly embarrassed back in 2011 by high-profile articles appearing in the New York Times here and the Wall Street Journal here about how J.C. Penney and Overstock used manipulative linking practices to game Google’s PageRank algorithm in order to rank higher in the non-paid search results.

News flash: publicly traded company stock prices can plummet on bad news.

In response, Google got really pissed off and unleashed a series of game-changing algorithm changes to combat content and links created merely to game the system. Game over, man, game over.

What’s Authorship got to do with all of this? First of all, it centers on linking to your Google+ profile; now you may think Google+ is a social network and just designed to compete with Facebook. I did when it first came out too.

Sure, it is a social network but it’s much more than that – I highly, highly recommend you read more about that here as soon as you can, but for now, you could simply think of it the way Mike Arnesen puts it when he talks about the possibility of AuthorRank – I’m paraphrasing what I heard him say in a presentation at an SEMpdx workshop, but it went something like “Google Plus is really an identity verification system.”

See how all of this is tying together? – Google got sick and tired of people gaming their PageRank algorithm and also had its fill of people posting crap content and “building” crap links to their crappy content in order to get their crap sites ranking highly in Google’s non-paid (organic) search results.

The search giant may seem unstoppable and un-toppable (grist for a different blog post), but people are fickle and tides can turn quickly (just ask MySpace or Friendster)… they had to make changes, and quick.

One of those changes is finding a way to be able to trust content that’s posted on the Internet – and, have a way to trust people too.

Meanwhile, back at the Google Authorship ranch…

Okay, so I promised you a completely unscientific experiment.

It all started on Halloween this year when a good friend of mine named Jason Wright – who is an online marketing and web technology expert by day and budding film director by night – carved the letters “SEO” into a pumpkin and posted a picture of it on Twitter comparing it to Matt Cutts’ hair (you’ll have to ask him why; looks like gratuitous pandering to me).

I IM’d Jason and asked him to put a link in the “contributor to” section of his Google+ profile (you did read Marks Traphagen’s post I linked to above… right??) and point the link to one of my 32 test websites (yes, I only have 32 websites, don’t judge me).

Then I slapped up a quick couple of sentences in a new blog post on that site with a unique Title Tag and “closed the Authorship loop” by linking back to Jason’s Google + profile in the HTML.

Why?

Because I wanted to know: for a crap website like this particular one of mine, how long would it take for Google to index this new crap blog post since I had the Almighty Power of Google Plus going for me. I’d read articles online in the past about new content being indexed very, very quickly by linking to it from a G+ post – would Google do the same for my junky blog post content?

Attempting to load the dice in my favor, I slapped up a quick post on my barren Google+ profile pointing at my new junky post on my junky website.

If patience is a virtue…

I’m not a patient man, so right away I did a Google phrase-match search on the title of my junky blog post “The SEO Pumpkin Transformation” and here’s what I found:

My Google+ post was already appearing in search results. Google evidently likes (and trusts) its ID verification / social network enough to get that baby up right away.

Hmm – would my junky sites URL already be indexed? – I had to look:

No dice. So much for loading them… at least for now; I went about my day.

Later, at the end of my workday, I did the same thing – first the phrase-match search:

Hmm. Now my Google+ post and my Google+ profile were showing. Okay….

Now for the URL test in Google’s search box:

Um, Okay; My G+ profile is showing up for URL search. Hmm… Mr. Traphagen might have something to say about this!

What a difference a day makes

The next day I eagerly performed the same searches and here’s what I found – first the phrase-match search on the Title Tag of my blog post:

And checking the page’s indexation in Google:

Hey! My junky post is now indexed! Fun with Google Authorship!

But what I found interesting about this is that while my blog post was indexed, it was not appearing in search results for a phrase match search on the title tag.

In my mind (or, in reality I guess…) Google was favoring its own property (Google+) over my site – albeit not the highest quality site or blog post page in the world – and that also made me say “Hmmm” to myself.

Just for grins and giggles I tried a broad match search on the title tag:

Yep, pretty much as I suspected, Google+ wins again.

It’s tomorrow already

The next day; a new day full of hope and promise… what would we find? I’m sure you’re as curious now as I was then, so bring on the screenshots!

First, the phrase-match search on the blog’s Title Tag:

So far so good: just like yesterday my page is still indexed and Google+ still loves itself, all is right with the universe.

I also did an info:url search:

Those are fun and useful because you can instantly see information about a page like a snapshot of Google’s last crawl of the page by clicking on “Google’s cache” which also then provides a link to view a text-only version of the page which means you can see how Search Engines see your page. As you can see in the screenshot here there are other links too like finding pages “similar to” yours (hello! competitive research…) but forget about the pages that “link to” link because that’s completely useless…

Nothing new for today.

Next I decided to try a couple of different Google Authorship configurations (if you were waiting for ‘completely unscientific’ this may be your favorite part).

By the way: if it’s not completely apparent to you by now that Google Authorship is important for your business so you can establish yourself, your staff blog writers, and your business as a Trusted Entity in Google’s eyes, keep in mind there’s a huge benefit I glossed over (actually didn’t bring up yet) and that is this:

A picture of your smiling face shows up in the non-paid search results – and that increased visibility of your listing can increase your click-through rate which means more visitors at your site to fill out lead-capture forms, download whitepapers, watch videos, buy stuff… and generally do whatever you consider a “desired action” or conversion on your site.

Can you dig it? I knew that you would…

When you’re testing your Google Authorship to make sure everything is configured correctly, you need to use Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool (the tool formerly known as the “Rich Snippets Testing Tool”) and you can enter a live URL or even just some HTML.

I like this Chrome Extension to do testing. It’s faster.  I like faster. You push a button and boom! – Instant authorship testing.

I tested my blog post and found this:

As you can see, Jason’s smiling face is shown and – again – the idea here is that this increased visibility in a search result listing can increase click-through to your site. Whether Jason’s face in particular will encourage you to click or not is a different story.

The bottom line is if that’s surrounded with other search results listings that do not have a picture, you may get the click even if you’re being outranked!

Don’t believe me? Take a look at this:

Which would you click on? Huh? HUH? Yep, I thought so… Doesn’t Cyrus’ smiling face make that listing stand out to your eye more than the listing that is outranking him? I knew that you would dig it.

I bet you’re ready to abandon reading this right now and rush to set up Google Authorship, #amiright?

I mean, c’mon – you increase Google’s ability to trust you by getting into their Identity Verification Program AND you can increase your click-through rate AND probably even get the click over your competitors who are ranking above you.

Back to the point: you have to configure it properly.

Remember that whole “Google Authorship can be confusing” thing I brought up in the beginning? Notice by those search results (about 41,000) that I’m not the only one who thought so.

I messed with a few variations of the set up – and this post is long enough as it is and my memory breaks down a little bit about how many different ways I tested the configuration in the Structured Data Testing Tool because I only wrote down a few of them but it goes something like this:

• I cross-linked the blog post to Jason’s G+ profile.
• I created a bio page for Jason on my site, linked the post to the bio and cross-linked the bio to Jason’s G+ profile.

When I did that last thing, here’s what I got:

As memory serves, I tested links in the <body> and <head> tags but still ended up with my picture and profile.

Which brings up a good point: your mileage may vary and you need to test your configurations and not trust what I say, Mark says, or what anyone says – oh, and if that’s not disheartening enough for you, be sure to keep in mind that even after you get yourself all Authorship-configured and such, it’s totally up to Google whether they show your picture in the search results or not. And back to configuration: I know you’re busy and you just-wanna-know-the-one-right-way-to-do-things (and I really get that) but don’t take anyone’s word for anything, test it and find out for yourself.

Now I’m going to contradict my sidebar comment above and actually give you a “one right way” to do this:

The “lazy man’s” guide to quick ‘n easy Google Authorship configuration

One configuration that worked instantly (in the rich snippet tester) every time was this:

• Have your blog post author go to their G+ profile and add a link to your website home page in the “contributor to” section noted previously
• In any blog post they write, create a link to that author’s G+ profile

Boom Done.

All that junk about “link from the post to a bio page which cross links to the G+ page  and where does the rel=me link go vs. the rel=author links and does it work only in the <head> section or will it work in the <body> too and what about if I want to do that in a sidebar widget of my website is that okay too and what about that whole the first author listed is the one that will show up as the rich snippet in search results even if you have everything else correct…”

All that noise goes away.

Authorship configuration is easy to do on the fly; just make sure anyone who writes for your blog adds a link to the “contributor to” section of their G+ profile, then add a link to that profile from any blog post they write – you could just have a sentence at the end that says “this post by _____” and link to their G+ profile.

How easy is that?

Bonus Round: if you’re a business be sure to set up rel=publisher; it’s pretty much the same as what I just described but you cross link from your home page <head> section to your business’ (not a person’s) G+ profile. Super simple and easy to do. So get to it if that applies to you.

TL;DR plus  a few more really cool resources you must check out

The future of Internet marketing is now. The writing is on the wall. You must get your Google Authorship and/or Publisher configuration correctly up and running as of immediately, if not sooner. Doesn’t matter if you use or like G+, it’s a must-do-right-now situation.

Here’s some stuff you absolutely must check out:

• Mark Traphagen’s posts about rel author and publisher here and here
• Mike Arnesen’s write up on AuthorRank For Brands
• Ian Lurie’s presentation “The Next Web”
• Google’s documentation on the topic here and here
• Janet Driscoll Miller’s authorship troubleshooting flowchart here
• Justin Briggs’ excellent post on how Authorship impacts click-through rate here

That oughtta keep you off the streets and out of trouble for a while.

Now I hand this off to you, Dear Reader of the Portent blog; I look forward to hearing what you have to say in the comments.

UPDATE: Some folks have contacted me – evidently they skimmed this post instead of reading it – about G+, Authorship, and the potential to have an impact on rankings… which is not the topic of this post.  So, for those of you who are interested in that you can read about it here and here and here and especially here. Enjoy!

The post Google Authorship: 1 Completely Unscientific Experiment + 13 Killer Resources appeared first on Portent.

SEO is about attracting non-paid search traffic to your website. The idea is that a person searches the Web using Bing or Google, etc. and your site comes up in the non-paid search results. To that end, it’s important to make sure your website is easily understood by both people and machines.

• People = your target market, your ideal website visitors.
• Machines = search engines like Google and Bing.

It’s a problem if your website confuses people and they can’t easily find what they’re looking for. Or they can’t smoothly accomplish the tasks they want to complete (or you want them to complete).

But did you know it’s also a problem if your website confounds machines? It’s common for websites to have technical roadblocks that create problems for machines trying to understand or even find pages on your website.

Does your site need a makeover? Find out using…

The Portent 2014 SEO Website Makeover Checklist

Compare your website to this checklist. It’s not in any particular order so you can jump in and start your makeover pretty much anywhere on this list. You’ll be able to figure out if a checklist item is meant to make it easy for machines or for people. If not, just hit me up in the comments section at the end.

• Does your home page instantly and clearly communicate what you offer? Are you sure?
• Does each page have a page-relevant unique title tag?
• Does each page have a page-relevant unique meta description?
• Does each page have a clear and concise headline?
• Do your page URLs convey an indication as to the topic or content of the page?
• Do your pages use interesting unique images and make use of a relevant image ALT attribute?
• Does your page content truly inform or engage?

Don’t just answer “yes!” to the above questions, be objective and honest. The above list could keep you busy for quite a while… but here’s more:

• Are any pages on your website duplicates of any other page on your website (either by accident or on purpose)?
• Are any pages on your website duplicates of any other page on other websites you have (either by accident or on purpose)?
• Do any pages on your website contain text that is duplicated on any other website on the Internet (either by accident or on purpose)?
• Are topically related pages of content logically linked together in a way that’s useful to site visitors?
• Are any of the links on your site leading to “404 page not found” error pages?

Your content should be 100% unique on the Internet. Not 50% or even 99% unique, 100%. Broken links frustrate visitors and provide dead ends for machines so be sure to fix those. Got all that done? Let’s keep going…

• Is your site navigation easy to find, understand, and use?
• If someone landed on any page of the site, would they be able to instantly figure out where they were in the site hierarchy?
• Does your site have clear calls to action?
• Is your site rife with jargon and technical terms you use all the time but your target market does not use or understand?
• Do your site visitors get a clear indication of what will happen if they fill out a form, click a link, or take some recommended action?
• Do you provide a sitemap of pages in case someone wanted to see a complete “menu” of your website?

Here’s more stuff you need to attend to:

• Do your site pages load in a browser in less than 3 seconds?
• Do you have an XML sitemap?
• Are you making proper use of a robots.txt file?
• Are you making appropriate use of structured markup? (See schema.org for more info.)
• Have you set up Google+ authorship and/or publisher cross links?
• Is your site displaying well and is it usable on a smart phone?
• Are you putting content in technology that machines can’t understand like Flash or iFrames?

Got all that done already? Now check the following:

• Does your site code have huge blocks of JavaScript that could be moved to an external file?
• Does your site code have blocks of CSS that could be moved to an external file?
• Are you 100% sure that you have your analytics tracking tags deployed properly on each and every page of your site?
• Are you providing site search functionality to your visitors? Does it provide frustratingly irrelevant results?
• Does http://www. display in front of your domain name and also http://?
• Are all of your site’s links hyperlinking directly to the target URL, or do any of them pass through redirects?

Don’t stop now, you’re on a roll!

• Does Google Webmaster Tools report crawl errors you need to fix?
• Does Google Webmaster Tools report HTML improvements you need to make?
• Are images compressed?
• Are images properly scaled?
• Is your navigation still visible and usable if you turn off JavaScript in your browser?

Wrap up & TL;DR

This is not meant to be an “all-inclusive SEO checklist.” There is no such thing because every site has specific needs, problems, target markets, and technology stacks. When it comes to making your site better for both humans and machines, you want your distance from perfect to be as close to zero as possible.

I guarantee that by using this website makeover checklist you will find at least 3 things you need to fix or otherwise attend to with your team.

You’re welcome.

The post SEO Makeover for 2014: A Practical Guide for Businesses appeared first on Portent.

Anecdotally, we hear that people would rather die than have to get up in front of a group of other human beings and make a presentation.

I sure can relate to that! People who know me now might not believe this, but I grew up very shy and I was shaking in my shoes the first time I had to deliver a report in front of the class in school.

But as of today, I’ve conducted 1,893 presentations, classes, workshops, and keynote speeches to groups ranging from only a handful of people to grand ballrooms with many hundreds of people.  I’ve also authored 3 books on public speaking skills.

Public speaking can actually become quite addictive! – But we can all stand to improve our skills.

So come along with me on this fun and adventurous blog post to discover some seriously rad skills to instantly – yes instantly! – improve your public speaking & presenting skills.

I am going to point out some common things I see people doing wrong, and outline exactly how to fix it, instantly of course!

More importantly: don’t just learn these skills, use these skills and you’ll definitely become a much more dynamic, masterful, and effective presenter.

Instant improvement #1: No stage prowling

What you’re doing wrong:
That random prowling around the stage you’re doing, that pacing back and forth? – that needs to stop.

I know it makes you feel better and you just “like doing it” but it’s highly distracting. Moreover, it’s detracting from your presentation’s effectiveness. Leave the stage prowling to Chris Rock, okay?

How to fix it:
Map out several spots on the stage and assign an “audience state of mind” to that spot.

Also assign a single spot where you’ll stand and generally present (call that your “sweet spot”).

Those other spots you map out and present from could be an “audience intense curiosity spot” or the “revealing juicy secrets spot.”

You have probably never considered the fact that you should be consistently eliciting specific states of mind in your audience, and that those specific states can be “set and recalled” by using this technique.

Stand still in each spot, and do not mix them up.

Don’t let the seeming simplicity of this technique fool you; it’s extremely powerful. Decide on 2 or 3 audience states (more only if appropriate) that will be useful or important to elicit in your audience, and map those spots at least 3 or 4 steps away from your “sweet spot.”

Pro tip: Get yourself into the state you want your audience to be in when you’re in each spot, or tell a story that elicits that state.

Super-pro tip: You can’t do this if you’re stranded at a podium. Instead, use very specific gestures, facial expressions, and voice tones to delineate and elicit specific audience states.

Super-duper pro tip: Build a chain of states into your presentation that makes sense, such as: intense curiosity, then strong fascination, and then burning desire.

Instant improvement #2: Your voice speed

What you’re doing wrong:
Different people listen at different speeds but you’re only speaking at one speed. That means you’re not “getting through” to 66% of the audience, and frankly you run the risk of annoying a lot of people as well.

How to fix it:
First, you need to understand that not everyone processes information the same way. For brevity’s sake I’ll sidestep the relationship between voice speed and visual vs. auditory vs. kinesthetic information processing.

Just know this: some people prefer to hear a speaker talk quite fast, some prefer a speaker talk quite slowly, and others prefer a more medium voice speed. Vary your voice speed periodically during your presentation. Doing this ensures you reach all listening types in the room.

Pro tip: Varying your voice speed will dramatically increase your charisma.

Super-pro tip: You can combine voice speed variance with eliciting audience states of mind.

Super-duper pro tip: When speaking fast, hold your head still and do not gesture; when speaking medium-speed, bob your head and gesture a lot.

Instant improvement #3: Reaching the 4 processing styles

What you’re doing wrong:
You’re not designing your presentation to systematically include the “why people,” the “what people,” the “how people,” and the “what-if?” people.

How to fix it:
Generally, each person in your audience cares about why, what, how, or what-if information ahead of all else.

For example, the “why people” want to hear about the what and the how, but they badly need you to tell them why they should care, or else all of the what and how info will have no purpose, no meaning, no context.

Similarly, “what people” want the data and facts, and are less interested in the big picture or exactly how to use the data.

The “how people” want to know how to make things work; they don’t care as much about context or the raw data.

The fix here is to be sure to structure your presentation to include data and facts for the “what people,” steps and procedures for the “how people,” and big picture context for the “why people.” A simple Q&A session will cover the “what-if people.”

Pro tip: Always start with why – it sets context and the “how” and “what” people don’t mind waiting through that.

Super pro tip: Sometimes you can combine the why and the what by presenting facts, data, and statistics as the reasons why people should care about the rest of what you have to say / present.

Super-duper pro tip: Realize that “what-if people” will be looking for where things don’t make sense in what you say – they’re not necessarily mismatching you for the sake of being contrary, they’re a valuable asset to you because they’ll help you find holes that you may need to fill in later.  If they stump you with questions, or what-if scenarios you don’t know how to address, thank them and promise to look into it. Then get back to them and you both win.

Made it this far? – Here are a few bonus tips

Bonus tip #1: Scale way, way back on the PowerPoint slides. Only put 2 kinds of things on a PowerPoint slide:

1. Something that will visually explain something that otherwise would take many words to explain – for example, a line chart showing how mobile phones are taking over desktop computer purchases / searches.
2. What you absolutely want your audience to remember. Let me repeat because this is so easy to slide-by: Only, yes only, what you absolutely want your audience to remember.

Frank Sinatra once said “if you need anything more than a microphone and a spotlight, you’re an amateur.”

Make the focus of your presentation you, not the slides we’re busy reading while we’re not really hearing what you’re actually saying. After you put up that slide or chart, blank the screen so people focus on you, so we don’t daydream while looking at your current slide.

Bonus tip #2: Have a single, concise, clear call to action at the end of your presentation. Tell people exactly what you want them to do.

One and only one thing.

Pick what you most want – call me, follow me on Twitter, go buy my book at the back of the room –whatever it is, tell them clearly and concisely what they should do now, do next.

Bonus tip #3: No meta comments

Keep your internal soundtrack to yourself. Avoid saying stuff like “wow, it sure is hard to see you all with the bright lights in my eyes” or “this remote clicker is so sensitive”. Keep that kind of stuff to yourself, and stick to what you want to present.

Bonus tip #4: Assume you have too much material and not enough time

I know for sure someone crams too much into their presentation  when they say things like “wow, I’m running out of time. I’ll have to blast through the next 136 slides I have left” (see bonus tips 1 and 3 above). Sure, you’re trying to deliver as much value as possible, but if you can’t spend adequate time on everything, then you’re short-changing – and frustrating – your audience.

If you don’t read anything else, read this:

One of the top objections I hear from speakers about these skills is “If I do that stuff I’m not being myself / not being authentic.”

I have quite a lot to say about that (aside from how that’s just not true) but for now I’ll leave you with 2 important considerations:

1. Your presentation is about your audience, not about you.
2. If you speak only English and you move to Japan, are you going to insist that everyone speak your language? That’s arrogant and short-sighted. By incorporating these skills, you’re demonstrating behavioral flexibility and you’re putting the needs of your audience ahead of your needs.

What to do now?

In the comments section below, please tell me all the reasons why you think I’m right or wrong! Have a question? Feel free to ask here.

Thanks for reading; I hope you’re buzzing with excitement to incorporate these skills to improve your next presentation!

The post 3 Surprising Ways to Instantly Improve Your Public Speaking Skills appeared first on Portent.

Even if you have zero interest in programming or SEO, I’m convinced you’re going to be glad you decided to read this blog post.

And to make it a total no-brainer for you, I’m offering a 100% money back guarantee.  Sound good?  Keep reading.

Hello, I’m David and I’m a wanna-be geek

Sometime around Y2K, I decided to take an online class in HTML from the local college. When I learned HTML, it was ALL CAPS and the best-possible way to position page elements was using tables. Coders ought to get a chuckle out of that.

I thought I’d enjoy switching over to a career in web design because I’d had a lot of fun doing artsy types of things when I was younger and considered myself to be fairly creative.

But it turned out I sucked at web design, which was pretty deflating because I was sure I was going to be really good at it.

Over the ensuing years I’d mess around making crappy websites for myself just for grins and giggles – nothing serious, just flirting.

When I developed an unexpected, serious interest in SEO in 2008, I figured my background in HTML would come in handy – I could make my own sites and save on web designer bills – so I made some more crappy-looking websites.  I wanted to see if I could get them ranking highly, sell a bunch of stuff, and do that whole “get rich on the Internet” thing.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

After much studying, trial and error (mostly error), I did end up ranking some websites on the first page and even #1 for some keywords. I was pretty proud of myself despite the emotional roller coaster ride of watching rankings fluctuate.

This is when I first realized that high rankings do not equal traffic or conversions (or getting rich) and I figured it was because ugly sites were probably scaring people away.

A web designer friend of mine, after she got up off the floor laughing at one of my sites, turned me on to WordPress – which showed me how to create far better-looking sites than my DreamWeaver-created train wrecks.

How to master programing in one simple step

Fail.

Or better put, be prepared to fail… A LOT.

As I got into WordPress, I discovered that there was this thing called “PHP;” it was like the Wizard of Oz – making magic happen behind the scenes.  I wanted to know more about this thing.

So PHP is technically not a programming language because it doesn’t require compiling – it’s a scripting language – but stay with me here.

I hired a PHP programmer from my previous job to tutor me in PHP after work one night a week; for me it was like trying to learn Chinese – I was completely lost.

You see, my biggest mistake was thinking that I needed to learn PHP before I could do PHP.

Wait for all the traffic lights to be green before getting on the road

…And you’ll never go anywhere.

Road trips can be fun, and yes it’s good to have an idea of where you’re going and how to get there – but inevitably wherever you go you’ll have to deal with red lights, detours, or even road closures.

You don’t learn programming and then do it. You do programming and learn along the way.

The 5 Step Formula to Succeed at Anything

Sometimes it seems like I’m doomed in life to learn the same lessons over and over… and over again.

I think the best visual metaphor for our personal or professional development (or any context in life, really) is an upward spiral: you come around to and revisit the same things again, but from a higher level because you have more experience.

It’s the cumulative experience and upward movement that keeps us from chasing our tails – because if we’re not learning from our mistakes then we really are just running in circles.

When I wanted to learn SEO, I applied a process I’d learned some years before:

1. Know your outcome
2. Have a good strategy
3. Take consistent action
4. Observe the results of your actions
5. Be flexible and make adjustments

The unspoken 6^th step is “don’t quit,” by the way.

When it came to actually learning SEO, I figured why reinvent the wheel when I could just find an expert and discover what they knew? Shortcut to bigger bank accounts, here I come!

Amusing musings over presumptuous assumptions

Remember step two of the 5 Step Success Formula? Well, if someone else has already done it, why not copy that person’s success strategy?

I just needed to find someone who had The Secret Bag of SEO Magic Fairy Dust – then all I’d have to do is sprinkle it onto my websites and watch my bank balance grow like flowers in the springtime.

Just follow their recipe, right?

The flaw in that logic is there is no one-right-path, magic bullet to SEO success or winning at online marketing. There is no recipe for making the perfect SEO soufflé.

But I think there is a prevalent belief out there that looks something like this:

My website + SEO = Buckets of (fast & easy) cash

But SEO is not a “one and done” situation; just like you don’t go to the gym once and achieve all your fitness goals, you don’t “do some SEO to your site” and emerge victorious. Heck, even when you do achieve all your fitness goals at the gym, what happens if you stop exercising?

You must DIY

The ice cream diet: How’d that sound the first time you heard it? I bet you were skeptical, but also intrigued! Imagine skipping the gym for the ice cream store and still losing weight!

I’m no different. I have books with titles like “PHP Crash Course.” I like the sound of that – learn PHP in a single weekend. Yes, I also own “SEO for Dummies.”

But if you want to do PHP or Martial Arts or SEO, you have to be willing to hang in there and grind it out.

You have to go back to debugging your code when you’ve already pulled most of your hair out, and you have to go back to the Dojo when you’re still bruised from the last class. And, you have to make those iterative changes to your site and strategy SEO-wise.

No ships or planes take a straight line directly to their destination. In fact, they’re off course more than they’re on course, often having to adjust for wind, currents, etc. Take a small sailboat out by yourself sometime and try to stay in a straight line to some destination.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t occasionally ask for help:  if I’m hopelessly lost and have tried everything (and I mean everything) then it’s not a bad idea to reach out to others. It’s not a sign of weakness. But if I can figure the issue out for myself, I’ll be better off in the long run because I’ll learn more.

The Zen of Almost Everything

A friend of mine said the other day, “I learn more about myself playing a round golf than I really want to know.”

I can relate. Currently it’s PHP that’s re-teaching me things like humility, patience, and persistence.

I thought I already possessed those traits to some decent degree, but after the fourth time I threw my computer out the window, I realized I’ve still got a ways to go on that front.

Up the spiral we go. If you happen to overhear any sudden outbursts of expletives along the way, it’s probably just somebody trying really, really hard to progress and learn. Don’t hold it against me, er, them.

What about you? What pull-all-your-hair-out experiences are teaching you more than you wanted to know about yourself? What made you say “yeah!” out loud or “hmm” inside your head in what you’ve been reading here?

I can’t wait to hear about it.

Oh, and if you’re looking for that refund, remember this: 100% of zero is still zero.

The post What Programming Is Teaching Me About SEO and Life appeared first on Portent.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the original bad boys of rock and roll have endured for a half century despite drug and alcohol problems, several changes to the band’s line-up, and occasional rumors of impending retirement or break-up. (I’m sure all of those “this is the final tour” rumors must have sold a lot of concert tickets over the years).

The first time I completely “got” the Stones was when I saw the movie “The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus”, a film of performances by the Stones, The Who, and others, which was shot in 1968 but not released until 1996. Frontman Mick Jagger’s stage performance is fabulous – nothing like the manic, arena-strutting rooster impersonations most of us know him for, with the rest of the band solidly delivering.

You may or may not be a fan or even “get” the Stones, but one thing is undeniable: SEO is like the Rolling Stones. Sound far-fetched to you? Read on and become converted!

Mick Jagger

Once called “one of the most popular and influential frontmen in the history of rock & roll” with a performance style said to have “opened up definitions of gendered masculinity and so laid the foundations for self-invention and sexual plasticity which are now an integral part of contemporary youth culture”, Jagger has certainly garnered a ton of attention over the years both professionally and personally.

Every band needs a dynamic & engaging frontman as the primary focal point to captivate an audience’s attention. In SEO, a website’s search engine rankings are just like Jagger. People are captivated by Jagger’s movements onstage, and they’re similarly captivated by movements in their rankings. But just as Mick is not the only focal point the Stones present, rankings are not the only focal point in SEO either. In fact, many SEOs suggest focusing more on site traffic and conversions than rankings.

But when all is said and done, for better or worse, Mick gets the lion’s share of the attention and it’s the same with rankings in SEO.

Keith Richards

Expelled from college for truancy as a youth, tried on drug-related charges five times as an adult, and once called “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Richards is the undisputed bad boy of the band.

Urban legends circulated that Richards routinely traveled to Switzerland to have his drug-riddled “dirty” blood replaced with fresh plasma. There were even unsubstantiated rumors that Richards was so jealous of the better-looking, hard-partying Stones guitar player Brian Jones that he contributed to or even somehow caused Jones’ drowning death in his own swimming pool in 1969.

Like Richards, SEO has a bit of a reputation problem. Our email in-boxes flood with promises that our site can rank #1 for any keyword we want starting tomorrow by hiring such-and-such SEO company. SEO is perceived by some to be on the same level as snake oil salesmen. Some see SEO as a profession dedicated to manipulating Google’s search results with our “evil SEO practices” (cue the evil laughter soundtrack).

All professions have good and bad actors and SEO is no different.  While Richards is probably laughing all the way to the bank about his bad-boy image, the SEO community struggles with a somewhat-tarnished reputation.

Ronnie Wood

A former member of well-known bands like The Jeff Beck Group, Faces, and The Birds, Wood  joined the Stones in 1975 to replace guitarist Mick Taylor. Wood plays rhythm, lead, bass and slide guitar. He also writes and co-writes songs, sings, and has released solo albums. On top of all of that, Wood is a well-known visual artist, hosts his own radio show, and has his own record company, “Wooden Records”. Clearly Ronnie wears a lot of hats.

SEOs have a lot in common with Ronnie because we have to wear a lot of hats too. We have to know how search engines crawl and index websites, as well as how HTML, CSS and JavaScript work. We have to know our way around analytics and paid search. We have to be conversant in user experience (UX) and conversion rate optimization. We have to be wizards with Excel, know how to read log files, and have a working knowledge of how various content management systems operate.

And that’s just scratching the surface of what an SEO needs to know and be able to do; there’s much more. Ronnie, I think, would dig being an SEO.

Charlie Watts

An accomplished jazz drummer, Watts joined the Stones in 1963. Watts’ demeanor on- and off-stage is much more subdued and calm, especially when compared with his highly flamboyant bandmates. Steadily drumming away on recordings and live tours over the past 49 years, Watts has done his thing with little limelight or personal controversy. Quietly and ceaselessly, Watts has contributed to the success of the Stones without much fanfare.

SEO is not as hip and trendy as social media marketing. SEO is not as immediately measurable as paid search – it takes longer to see results. But SEO quietly and ceaselessly drives traffic, and often the majority of it.

SEO is the steady drum beat that provides the solid backbone of traffic and conversions to websites. Social networking sites may come and go, and paid campaign budgets my shrink or dry up, but SEO just keeps on banging away with little fanfare or limelight. Just like Charlie.

England’s Newest Hit Makers – The Rolling Stones

That was the title of their debut album in May 1964. In the ensuing 50 years they’ve released more than two dozen studio albums and had numerous hits. But from time to time, rumors swirled that the Stones were going to stop rolling – that they were breaking up or retiring. Those rumors continue.

The term “SEO” was coined in 1995 and in the 19 years since, it’s cranked out ‘hits’ too. And of course anyone involved in SEO has heard the rumors and assertions that SEO is dying or even already dead. Yet, despite the many proclamations of SEO’s demise, it seems to just keep on rolling along… Just like the Rolling Stones.

What other ways do you think that SEO is like the Rolling Stones? I can hardly wait to hear your ideas – share them in the comments below.

The post 5 Ways SEO is Like the Rolling Stones appeared first on Portent.

Recently, Team Portent has been writing a lot about local SEO best practices for US markets. And with good reason; mobile device usage is on the rise. Think about how often you reach for your smartphone or tablet to get directions to a local business, check their phone number, look at reviews or menus, or do on-the-spot price comparisons before you buy?

But what if – just what if – you’ve opened up shop in another country (nice going on the travel write-offs, eh?). How do you make sure potential customers in Berlin, Germany aren’t being directed to your store in Berlin, Ohio, huh? Huh?

To cover those bases, here’s a handy-dandy checklist for you if you have – or plan to have – a business with a physical presence in another country.

By the way, you’re going to need to drive yourself over to a new website, and yes that’s me in the backseat incessantly asking “are we there yet?”

To be clear: this checklist is not going to cover what to do if you have a single website with more than one language or if you’re trying to target more than one country. That’s a different post for a different day. Also, there are differing opinions about whether to host in the country you’re opening your new business or if  “cloud” hosting is just fine; let’s face it, only Google’s algorithm knows for sure (please pass the secret sauce) but the bottom line here is that the more signals you can send to Google that you’re targeting that specific country, the better. Oh, and one more thing – it would be presumptuous of me to say that this is going to cover every possible country in the world (your mileage may vary) but this will certainly give you a head start.

Okay, with all that in mind, here’s your new website checklist:

Hosting

Host the website in the target country. Google will detect server location based on IP address. Example: a German-language website will be hosted in Germany.

Country-code top-level domain name (ccTLD)

Use the proper ccTLD for your website. Example: for Belgium, use www.YourAwesomeWebsite.com.be (complete list of country code TLDs can be viewed here).

Edit: Thanks to Gareth in the comments for catching my typo (it’s funny how typing .com happens without even realizing it) – the example above should be “www.YourAwesomeWebsite.be”.

Content, language, and culture

Best option: post original, fresh content written by a native speaker from the country in question. Next best is an accurate translation of existing content by a native or native-bilingual speaker using correct syntax, spelling, and cultural expressions. Automated translations are to be avoided.

External linking

Country/region specific links, especially from industry- and niche-related trade groups, associations, blogs, online newspapers, and other organizations and publications from within the country should be obtained and earned. By obtained, I do not mean “purchased.” Start with any industry organizations you can or do belong to in that country, vendor and partner sites – you get the idea.

Citations

City, regional, and country-specific citations should be obtained in the equivalent of online white/yellow pages listings, niche directories, and online business databases. It’s important that the business’s NAP (name, address, phone number) is 100% consistent in each citation obtained. Yep, just like the other local business tips our team has written about before.

Physical location

The physical address should be noted in plain text on the website in the site-wide footer; at a minimum on the “contact” and/or “about” page(s).

HTML language specification

Use the HTML lang attribute to declare the language used on the website.

Example: <html lang="de"> for your website in Germany.

Google Webmaster Tools

Set geo-targeting for your ccTLD.

Google Maps

List the business address and verify the location in Google Maps.

Google+ Local

Get your profile created; leave no profile fields blank.

Currency

If prices are listed or other monetary references are made on the site, use the currency symbol of the country in question. Example: ¥ for Japanese yen.

TL:DR

I know, I know – you want to just use Google Translate and set up a YourWebsite.com/de subdirectory structure or maybe a subdomain on your current site if that goes well, then you’ll think about doing international SEO right. You know all that stuff above you didn’t read? Search engines (like Google) see all of those things as strong signals as to how relevant your website is to searchers in that region/country. The more you get those items right, the better you’ll do.

Remember, all the standard SEO rules still apply. In case you need a refresher, our stalwart SEO Strategists have recently given you the social optimization skinny for your local business, how to properly place-in & penetrate local business directories. The “local SEO busters” affirmatively answered all of your questions in our “local SEO Q&A,” and as if all of that was not enough, our Team Lead led a not-to-be-missed webinar “SEO Tips for Small Businesses” (which you can watch here in case you did miss it).

Okay so what did I miss on my checklist? You’ll let me know in the comments, won’t you?

The post The Basics of International SEO – a Brief Best Practices Checklist appeared first on Portent.

Recently I did a survey of our staff here at Portent to see if anyone had any questions about SEO they wanted answered.

I made the survey anonymous using Survey Monkey, because sometimes people feel more comfortable asking a question without their identity being revealed. In the spirit of sharing and transparency, we decided to post the results of our survey right here on the Portent blog.

So – how’d I do with my answers? Do you have any additions you’d like to make? Any strong disagreements? Don’t worry, I can handle it if you don’t agree… if anyone needs me I’ll be in the bathroom crying.

SEO survey questions & answers

What are the top 10 easiest things a blogger could do on their own?

Presuming no SEO expertise on the part of the blogger in question, here are some fairly easy tips to help with SEO:

1. Before writing, do some simple quick keyword research on the subject at hand and determine what topically-related keyword(s) people are using when searching Google. Tools to help with this are Google’s AdWords keyword tool, Google suggest (start typing a search, watch what Google suggests – or use Ubersuggest), Google Trends (look at the related terms and rising terms), and also do a search in Google then look at the “related searches” under the “show search tools” heading in the left sidebar.
2. After completing step 1, use the target keyword in <title> tag, <h1> tag, in the meta description, and use in a natural and not-forced manner in the page content 1-3 times (that last part is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast rule).
3. Put a topically-relevant image on the page and name the image your-keyword.png (or whatever extension it is) and use the keyword in the image alt attribute.
4. Use a good URI structure such as one of these Permalink structures:
   /%postname%/
   /%category%/%postname%/
5. Use tags and categories appropriately. Example: blog theme = cooking, category = spicy recipes, tag = ghost peppers. Tags should be more specific than categories. Should you use your keyword? Maybe/probably; opinions differ here but Google seems to be fond of tag URLs for some reason. Don’t overuse tags, 1-5 is enough.
6. Use good internal linking: link related blog posts to each other. Vary the anchor text, don’t try to be “too perfect.” Use a blend of targeted keywords and generic terms (such as “here” or “this article”). Use anchor text that makes sense and is not awkward to a casual reader.
7. Add visible social sharing buttons – social overlaps with SEO because if people share your content, they may link to it, which can boost your page / site authority.
8. Look at your Google Analytics Content > All Pages report; what content has been successful in the past? Write more content on popular topics – content that has had good engagement metrics. Note: never duplicate content or make “thin rewrites” merely for SEO purposes.
9. Set up Google authorship – link your Google + profile to your blog. Eventually your picture will show up in Google’s search results and improve click-through. Use a good picture!
10. View keywords that currently drive organic traffic to your site – look in Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and internal site search terms; mine this data for more content writing opportunities.

If Google consistently changes their algorithms, how are we certain the recommendations we give are the right ones which will benefit the client 6 months or a year from now?

Google does consistently, and constantly, change their algorithm. This is certainly something they do to best serve their users because Google’s revenue is mostly from AdWords clicks, and they want happy users who continue to use Google. And click on ads.

So in a sense, with respect to organic results, we’re chasing what Google is chasing and recommendations we make are, to some extent, evergreen. Examples of this include making sure that clients’ sites load fast, don’t have any technical barriers, roadblocks or SEO deal killers, and are optimized on-page/site with SEO best practices so that search engines can easily crawl and index those pages.

From that standpoint the recommendations we make today should for the most part still be good recommendations in 6 months or a year. Note: none of this should be interpreted to mean that SEO is unchanging, or that Google won’t make dramatic changes, or that the search landscape itself won’t undergo radical unforeseen changes. The basic foundations of relevance and authority will very likely stand the test of time even as tactical adjustments are necessary due to algorithm changes.

What is driving placement in Google search results so that I can tell my clients to do that?

Generally speaking (and presuming no technical barriers or problems exist) relevance and authority matter most.

When a searcher performs a search, Google is doing its robot-best to serve up the most relevant, satisfying results to the searcher. It’s extremely important for your clients to optimize their site for how people actually search for the product, service, cause, or issue they want to be found for in Google’s SERPs.

That means “getting inside the head” of their target market / audience and discovering how they search online. Organizations frequently talk about what they do using jargon or technical terms that their target market would never use in a Google search. Their website may even be rife with such jargon or technical terms… that their target market is not using in organic search.

Optimizing a website using those terms is of course only one of many recommendations that an SEO specialist will make, depending on the specific needs of that site.

Why does it take so damn long?

Why does what, specifically, take so long? Take longer than what?

I presume the question is asking why organic visibility and resulting traffic and conversions take longer than, for example, other methods such as well-managed PPC campaigns.

When you stop to think about it, it’s a fairly large undertaking to index, categorize, and rank the many documents that exist on the web.

In order to gain visibility and traffic from organic search, a website needs authority and relevance. The factors that influence authority and relevance such as garnering links from important and/or related sites and producing high quality relevant content – those tasks themselves require consistent effort.

Do rankings even really matter anymore? What about the whole personalized search thing?

For sure personalization, universal search results, local results, etc. have affected the SERPs (search engine results pages) layout and organic listings. That said, visibility does matter – how many times do you go past the first page of SERPs?

(I have my Google search settings at 100 results yet I still go past the first page).

For now I’ll set aside any discussion of whether people will bother to click on your result (even if you’re highly ranked). And I’ll also set aside any discussion of whether those people find what they’re looking for, much less trust, believe, or like on your site.

More to the point is the fact that rankings are not a business metric. Visibility is important; if no one finds you in organic search… you get the idea. But the more important metrics to pay attention to are engagement and outcome metrics in your Analytics reports.

Why are my search results less progressively less helpful every time Google has an algorithm update?

The helpfulness of a search query’s results is, to a large extent, ostensibly subjective. There are those who’ve publicly stated that updates such as Panda and/or Penguin have only marginally accomplished the goals of reducing spam in search results and thwarting the success of manipulative tactics.

Will a site with crappy content that’s been optimized outrank a site with stellar content that has not been optimized?

In the past, people have used SEO techniques and shortcuts to get crappy content to rank. The idea was to use all on-page optimization techniques but also game the algorithm by buying or otherwise procuring links fairly rapidly and typically with keyword-specific anchor text. These techniques, generally speaking, have been fairly successful.

The above is working less often than before due to ongoing Google algorithm updates such as Panda, Penguin, and others we surely don’t know about. Google is definitely aware of the fact that, for example, people have used “article spinning software” which takes a piece of content and replaces various verbs or other words with synonyms and so on; the net result can be dozens or even hundreds of “spun versions” of the original content which is then placed on various web properties linking to the main site.

Do I really need to input meta descriptions for all my blog posts?

Yes. I strongly encourage you to use well-written meta descriptions for all blog posts.

Here are some guidelines for optimal meta descriptions:

• 150 characters or less including spaces
• Include the page’s target keyword (it will be bold text in Google’s search results helping your listing to stand out to the searcher’s eye)
• It should give the searcher a very good indication of what they’ll get after clicking through
• As practicable, include a call to action and/or make it compelling

Is this really anonymous?

Yes, Josh, it really is; SurveyMonkey does not show me who asked any of these questions.

I’m curious about the influence of social on SERPs. Do we have any data or any correlations we can show clients that will help them to see that activity on Facebook / Twitter / Pinterest is playing a role in their keyword rankings?

Because rankings are not a business metric, I suggest that it’s better to tie social activity to metrics in GA – referrals/visits from social activity and associated engagement and outcomes (goals) data, rather than to try to tie that to SERP rankings.

There an excellent SEOmoz article here that does speak directly to your question of social as correlated with rankings; I suggest a careful read of this and not a quick scan in order to get all the data straight. It’s likely that social signals influence ranking in an indirect manner such as the more people who are exposed to a piece of (great) content due to social sharing, the more likely it is to garner links that do help with ranking.

I’ll end where I began here: it’s better to tie social activity to better metrics than rankings. Check your Google Analytics reports to see how your social activity is translating into traffic, assisted conversions, and goal completions.

The new HTML5 elements (i.e. <section>, <article>, etc.) are a big deal for accessibility. How do they play into SEO?

Examining the W3C documentation, it may be content in the <article> element will weighted more heavily by search engine spiders because that content is supposed to be “…a self-contained composition…” as opposed to the <section> element which W3C says is “…appropriate only if the element’s contents would be listed explicitly in the document’s outline.”

I’d suspect that as more sites use HTML 5 that Google et al. will evolve how they weight content in those sections and use <section> to get topic or especially sub-topic signals comparing that with the signals they receive from the <article> element to determine the relationship between content in those 2 elements in order to classify and index that content.

What is the single most important thing a website must have in regards to SEO?

Generally speaking – and crudely put – the single most important thing a website must have for purposes of SEO is relevant, index-able content.

That content must be valuable and unique, of course, and it’s best if the website has some sort of theme or main topic so that all the content “fits under a single umbrella” so to speak.

For the long and short term, for search engines and for humans, the single most important thing a website must have in regards to SEO is relevant high-quality content that is useful to humans and easily crawled and indexed by search engines.

Does a link in the first 100 words of a blog post really pass more authority than one in the middle of the content?

I presume we’re talking about how Google treats those links. And there are 2 possible scenarios – the link points to another page on the same site, or it points to different separate web property. Frankly, I doubt anyone outside of Google (and few inside) really knows for sure in both of those instances. My sense is that beliefs such as “only the first link passes link juice” etc. are not true and that there are more complex and sophisticated factors involved with how or even when and if a text-based link passes authority.

How few links should a 500-700 word guest post have to ensure our anchor text links pass the maximum authority to client sites?

Each page has a certain amount of authority or “link juice” to pass to another page. The more links on the page, the less authority each link passes.

Certainly we want to maximize our outreach and not undercut those efforts; I’d say don’t worry about including other links (to non-client resources) if they’re truly relevant and helpful to human readers of that content.

How does a link in the middle of a guest post compare to a link in an author bio appended at the end of the main copy compare to a link in an actual author bio box at the end of a post?

First, read the answer to the question above “Does a link in the first 100 words of a blog post really pass more authority than one in the middle of the content?” because that’s also relevant here.

Next, I’ll add that it’s quite likely that the link in the text is seen as more important than the links in author bio boxes.

How is optimizing a title tag and an h1 different? Should one be more catchy, the other more keyword-rich?

Ideally they should both be catchy and utilize the target keyword.  The main difference is space constraints (more on this below).

The <title> and <h1> should definitely smoothly relate to each other because if a searcher sees a search result (<title> tag is the search result “headline” and clickable blue link), clicks on that result, and the page headline (the content of the <h1> tag) is far different than the <title> tag in search results, that can create a post-click mismatch of the searcher’s experience with the pre-click expectation that was set in the SERP.

Another way of saying that is that the landing page headline should concur with the promise of the <title> tag in the search results to create a smooth experience, and the searcher feels like they found what they’re looking for.

For SEO purposes, the <title> and <h1> ought to both include the targeted keyword. Both SEO and searchers needs can and should be met when writing those tags.

Space constraints of the <title> tag: Google tends to display only 70 characters including spaces. After that they’ll either truncate or machine-replace the <title> tag (the latter is a more recent development announced by Google). If the company or brand name will be included in the <title> tag (typically at the end in most cases) then there’s even less space to work with.

The <h1> tag contents does not have this limitation so it can obviously be more expansive.

Wrap-up

People will continue to search online. Whether it’s a search that’s typed or spoken (or maybe even, gasp! – thought someday!?), people will be searching the interwebz to find information, answers to questions, and to make purchases. Companies like Google will continue to strive to present searchers with the most satisfying results possible. Search Engine Optimization professionals will continue to bridge the gap by helping companies with their online marketing efforts. Here at Portent we believe that great marketing can save the world by connecting people to what matters. What do you believe?

The post Portent Staff Survey: “What’s your biggest question(s) about SEO?” appeared first on Portent.

I’m going to play mind-reader for a moment. Here’s what you think about SEO:

• You think search engine optimization is a closely-guarded secret bag of tricks
• You think SEO means beating Google at their own game
• You equate SEO with “buckets of cash” which would be pouring into your bank account if only you knew what the secret Google tricks were

Okay, okay, you busted me – that’s what I used to think SEO was. I’m projecting onto you.

But in total honesty, did you ever think that way? Do you think that way now? Maybe I should be embarrassed that I once thought that way, but you can’t know what you don’t know until you know it, ya know?

Who knew SEO was primarily eliminating technical roadblocks, making sure your site pages are relevant for how people search for what you offer, and earning off-site authority? Actually, a lot of people knew before I did. Better late than never, I suppose.

Who knew Google tricks for SEO really do exist? Turns out you really do want to stay away from those. Unless you’re an evil genius who can truly out-maneuver (yes, I’m actually laughing as I write that) the hundreds of super-smart Google engineers out there constantly tweaking the search algorithm, you’d better not use any of those nasty tricks.

Now, you may not even know what those Google tricks are. You may have no idea what actions will get your website banned from the Google index faster than catnip from a goldfish convention. But you might as well know what they are – not so you can do them, but so you can make sure your know-it-all nephew who spent five minutes on the Interwebs researching SEO doesn’t get your website torched for you.

Without further ado, I bring you “Google Tricks You Must Avoid Or You’ll Be Very, Very Unhappy”

Don’t stuff yourself

This is a trick that worked long, long ago in a galaxy not far away (the one we live in): keyword stuffing. In the early days of search engines, just repeating a keyword you wanted to rank for would boost relevance and rankings.

For example: “if you need a New Jersey Lawyer, there are several things you need to consider before hiring a New Jersey Lawyer. First, you want a New Jersey Lawyer located in New Jersey. The next thing you’re looking for is a New Jersey Lawyer who…”

You get the idea.

(I have a suspicion someone reading this is running to their website and blushing with shame at this exact moment).

Star ships do it, why can’t my website?

Cloaking is a sneaky technique where you show one thing to search engines (page about baskets of kittens) and another to human searchers (page about buy Viagra). There are other fun things you can (but should never) do with cloaking like using scripting to inject keywords seen by Google but not humans, or to check for googlebot (Google’s robot spider that crawls the web to index pages) vs. not and do a content bait-and-switch. Fun stuff, eh?

Note: it’s okay if you’re detecting a mobile user agent and serving up a mobile version of your website; you’re not trying to trick Google.

Hiding in plain sight

Here’s another fun one: white text on a white background. Humans can’t see that you’re repeating “New Jersey Lawyer” over and over and over and over – but googlebot sees that. This is like keyword stuffing, but a bit sneakier.

Another version of this is using CSS to position text so far off the page humans can never see it… but you’re tricking Google, and I want you to trust me on this one: Google does not like being tricked.

The old switcheroo

Another trick that Google will hate your website for is what they call “sneaky redirects.” Somewhat similar to cloaking, an example of a sneaky redirect is using a JavaScript meta refresh to switch URLs, here’s how that works:

Googlebot shows up all happy and trusting and crawls your webpage; everything is rainbows and unicorns, and googlebot leaves indexing what it found. But, meanwhile – muahaha – when a human visits that same page, after a certain period of time the meta refresh kicks in and a new page loads – no rainbows and unicorns for you! No, you get PPC (porn, pills, casinos).

Scheming & dreaming

Google just does not like it if you try to manipulate their ranking algorithm; which to no small extent depends on links. Someone once called links the currency of the web. Sure, there are other signals of authority Google uses, but for now links are pretty darn important to Google for determining authority (how important a site/page is and how highly it should rank for certain search queries).

People figured that out early-on and devised various link schemes to trick Google such as buying or trading links; automated link generation (via software) on blog posts, bookmarking sites, forums, or directories;  links in an article placed in various article directories, and so forth.

These schemes have worked for some time, but those hordes of Google engineers have been working on this and will continue to do so. They released the “Penguin” algorithm in April 2012 (with subsequent, ongoing updates) to counteract and even actively penalize sites trying to trick Google with link schemes.

Final thoughts & wrap-up

Trying to trick Google is doomed to failure. Google has been hard at work this year releasing numerous significant algorithm updates specifically designed to “close the dirty tricks loopholes” and you can bet they’ll continue to roll out more. Sure, you can probably out-maneuver them for a while, and some of the so-called “black-hat SEOs” even enjoy the cat-and-mouse game. But if you’re a “regular” business owner, marketing manager, etc., you’re better off staying away from Google tricks even if your competitors are using them. Fair warning: tricking Google today will result in the gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands tomorrow.

The post Google Tricks For SEOs to Avoid at All Costs appeared first on Portent.

When the world wide interwebs came along, I was instantly intrigued. That was largely because when I was a (gullible) little kid I thought there was a book called “The Everything Book” that contained the secrets to everything; like how to fly, be invisible – you know, cool stuff. (In case you’re wondering, now I’m a gullible adult).

So the very concept that there was this place you could go and find the answers to e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g got my attention quick. Silly me: in short order my fascination led me to make a hobby of creating websites. Very, very crappy websites. (In case you’re wondering, I can still make crappy websites).

What’s All This Drivel Got To Do With SEO Deal Killers?

I’m getting to that. Geez, so impatient…

Flash forward some years later and I get this crazy idea in my head: “Hey, if I learn how this thingy called Search Engine Optimization works, I’ll be able to get my websites to rank #1 for whatever… I’ll put stuff up there for sale, and pretty soon I’ll be seaside sipping drinks from coconut shells with umbrellas sticking out of them and lighting cigars with $100 bills!” (In case you’re wondering, I still get crazy ideas in my head).

I figured SEO was some kind of magic fairy dust – you know, a bunch of insider-secrets and tricks that if I could just find out what they were, I’d be rich! Rich I tell ya! I’ll drive a Ferrari to the old neighborhood and thumb my nose at those who picked me last for kickball in 3rd grade. Ha!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Getting Rich Quick…

Turns out SEO is work, and not magic fairy dust. Turns out SEO is not a bunch of tricks after all (I won’t cry for the lazy link-buyers). Turns out you have to know a lot about the technical aspects of how websites are constructed and operate, how JavaScript & CSS works, how external links affect your site, and you have to watch Google like a hawk because they’re constantly updating their ranking algorithm.

If you have a website, I’m sure you created it with good intentions. *cough*like me*cough*

But seriously: for those of you who have a website, especially a business or even an enterprise-level site, and are looking to “do some SEO to it”, run – don’t walk – to your website right now and see if it’s guilty of any of these 3 SEO deal killers.

If it is, fix ’em – and fast.

1. There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home…

So there I am with one of my websites and I’m learning SEO; imagine my horror, my shock, my extreme dismay when I discovered I had four, yes four, home pages!

http://mysite.com
http://mysite.com/index.html
http://www.mysite.com
http://www.mysite.com/index.html

Why you should care:

This is called a “canonicalization problem” in SEO (and has nothing to do with the Roman Church) and you should care for two main reasons:

1. You’re presenting 4 identical pages to search engines like Google and saying “pick a card, any card!” Even though search engine spiders like googlebot that crawl and index websites are pretty smart these days, these robots need all the help they can get and you don’t want to confuse them. Give them just one home page to crawl and index.

2. External links to your site are like votes. If you were running for president, you’d want all the votes for you to be counted, correct? Having more than one home page means your “votes” are probably not all being counted up correctly and that voting power is being diluted instead of concentrated. You want that power concentrated.

What you should do:

Try entering your site into the address bar of your favorite browser with http://yoursite.com and http://www.yoursite.com – watch the address closely, and if your site loads at both addresses, you need to fix that immediately. You should also click on every link on your site that says “home” and watch the address bar. You might be surprised by what you find. Have an assistant stand by with smelling salts just in case.

2. Don’t go breakin’ my…. internal links

Cheezy, I know. I’m good at cheezy.

If you have links on your site that lead to a “404” page not found error, you need to fix that.

Why you should care:

1. Broken links are frustrating to your site visitors. They hate them with a burning passion hotter than 1,000 suns. You run the risk of breaking their trust. After all, if your site doesn’t even work right, then what happens if they <gasp!> buy something or do business with you! Will your customer service suck too? Will you take their money and run? Seems like a small thing, those broken links, but they’re not. Web surfers are notoriously impatient and judgmental.

2. Crudely put, broken internal links impede the proper flow of PageRank on your site and that page may be linked-to from external websites and you’re effectively killing any incoming “votes” to that page. Not good. Frankenstein’s monster would say “Grrr. broken links bad!”

What you should do:

You can use a free tool like Xenu or Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Google it) to check for broken links on your site. Internally here at Portent, we use a highly-specialized super-sophisticated tool we custom-built called “Pythia” (don’t ask) to crawl your website – we’ll find not only internal broken links but all manner of SEO deal killers on your site. For now, you can use one of the free tools I mentioned. Shameless plug: when I need a plumber, I call an expert to get the job done right the first time and don’t waste my time trying to do it myself. If you need an SEO… ’nuff said.

After you crawl your site and find all those nasty broken links you didn’t even know you had, fix them! Fix them now!

3. Who says titles don’t matter?

If your business card says your title is “master of the known universe,” that’s super-awesome, but your website’s title tags are what I’m talking about here.

Why you should care:

Because I said so. Just kidding. You should care because <title> tags are a very strong indication to a search engine like Google what that page is about. Robots need our help, remember? Also, <title> tags are the “blue link” in search engine results pages – that is, when you search for “purple elephant end tables” in Google and you look through the results, title tags are the text with blue links. Humans see them. Search engines see them. If your home page <title> tag says “Home,” that’s not very descriptive to humans or robots.

What you should do:

Click around your site and look at the top of your screen at the very top of your browser, you’ll see the <title> tag there. If you’re adventurous, visit a page and right click and choose “view page source” and look for <title> in the HTML code – read the words between the opening title tag <title> and the closing title tag </title>. Does it succinctly (in 70 characters or less – including spaces) and accurately  (if you read this on a blank sheet of paper, would it make sense all by itself?) describe this page?

If not, it’s back to the drawing board for you. Yes, <title> tags are that important.

TL;DR

Too long? Didn’t read?

Summary for the skimmers:

1. Fix your canonicalization problem(s)

2. Fix your broken internal links

3. Fix your <title> tags

SEO deal killers are like your website shooting itself in the foot. That’s bad, by the way. Go get ’em fixed! Oh, and if you have any questions or comments about these 3 deal killers, feel free to add that to the comments section below.

Lastly, I (or one of the other SEO experts here) would be happy to check out your site out for you, find out what’s wrong with it, and then write up and deliver a complete report of 10 things you need to fix right now. You may have SEO deal killers on your site or other things that badly need to be fixed & improved, like, yesterday!

The post 3 SEO Deal Killers You Need To Fix Right Now appeared first on Portent.