Author Archives: admin

About admin

Weston Riesche is the Marketing Manager at SEO Solutions Inc. Weston is a Graduate of Roosevelt University and holds two Bachelors in Integrated Marketing Communications and Economics. He has been an integral part of the SEO Solutions management team, developing insights into the world of Search Engine Optimization. Social Media and Internet Marketing. Weston works closely with clients to engage their companies with unique, effective and exhaustive Internet Marketing campaigns that leads them to the top of the major search engines.

SEO Strategies for 2014

Search optimization has evolved, it is no longer just adding on-page requirements and creating links through any type of link building technique. SEO is now about creating a site that people are going to visit, revisit and tell their friends to visit. It is also about updating your site consistently with great content and useful information. This must be a religious activity that is just as big a part of your business as your product.

 

How to make your site stand out?

  •  Build good quality links – There is no denying of the fact that links are here to stay. We build links from highly relevant sources which include guest blogs, videos, infographics, local business directories, coupons, etc. making it a diversified backlink profile. We also make sure to diversify the anchor text by lowering the percentage of exact match anchor texts and getting more links for naked URLs, branded terms and variations.

 

  • Improve your On-site SEO – With the decrease in off page SEO factors, importance of on page SEO has increased. We continue to focus on more on-site optimization techniques which include consistently reviewing and correcting all possible 404 errors, fix duplicate (thin) content on the site, implementing rich snippets, etc.

 

  • Write good quality content for your site – We understand that having relevant content on your site as per the search engine standards is crucial to success. Apart from this we feature informative content on blog posts (added on the website blog).

 

  • Implement Google Authorship – Since Google has given clear indication that Authorship will be used as a ranking factor in near future, its better we implement it right away and take advantage of it. It also helps to improve click through rates as well as protects your content.

 

  • Improve social signals – Instead of doing social bookmarking of the article URLs, we get social signals to those articles ,which will include (either of) Facebook likes, Tweets or Google+ Votes. Client participation is encouraged. We have also included Social Profiles creation as part of our deliverables.

 

  • Recommend getting reviews on your Google+ local page – We believe this has been mentioned many times earlier but customer reviews are of utmost importance to rank a local website higher. We always recommend getting genuine reviews from your customers.

GOOGLE RECOMMENDS HAVING A RESPONSIVE DESIGN STRUCTURED WEBSITE

We have repeated this numerous times and here it is again. Choosing a Responsive Website design structure over a Mobile-only design. This time, we have decided to share the latest video from Google’s, Matt Cutts himself.

Matt explains that a Responsive design is nothing but good for your website in the eyes of Google. We believe responsive websites are given more preference in the SERPs. And unlike a Mobile-only template, responsive designed websites are not as prone to technical errors. They also allow you to keep all of your domain’s authority factors (link juice, URL structure, on-site SEO implementations and content) in one place, rather than having to optimize both your mobile website and your full website. This keeps your SEO more simplistic as you will have to optimize only one site instead of focusing on two different websites.

Simply said, Responsive web design is the BEST choice you can opt for from a long term perspective.

A Brief History of Keyword Usage

Many content creators have wisely (and not so wisely) used keyword practices as a part of their content marketing strategy over the years. What began with good intentions to increase their ability to be searched by their target audiences soon became a hotbed of questionable black hat SEO tactics as content creators (knowingly and unknowingly) allowed themselves to be drawn in by poor “quick ‘n easy” promises. Let’s take a closer look:

  • Keywords Discovered: “Hey, these keywords are neat and helped me show up on page one. I think I will use more of them.”
  • Keyword Clouds: “I’ll place a widget ‘cloud’ of words on my page to help search engines understand what my page is all about. Look! I can even make the words spin and interact with users!”
  • Keyword Glut: “I NEED MORE KEYWORDS! I’ll just stuff them here, there, everywhere and then I will rule the search – mwhahahahaha!”
  • Keywords Spun: “Quantity is so much better than quality! I’ll write dozens of articles covering the same topic and alter the text ever so slightly. It’s not exactly identical, but it targets the same keywords at least.”
  • Keywords Regulated: “STOP! This is the keyword police. Your content is under arrest. You are allowed one keyword or keyword phrase for every one hundred words. Failure to comply will result in suspension and de-indexing.”
  • Keywords Evolved.

How & Why to Disavow Broken, Spammy and Irrelevant links to Your Website

Google's Disavow Tool

Since the release of new penguin updates and the hummingbird update, websites that have built good links in the past are being penalized. Those well-built links were only “good” for the old Google algorithm. What does this mean? This means that the new Google updates and algorithm may consider the links built by website X in the past to now be bad links.

What should website X do?

If you find yourself being hit by Google’s algorithm updates it may be due to these old “bad” links. If you have not already installed Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, you need to install them for your website. Google Webmaster tools will allow you to find all of the links that are linking to your website. You can download this list in order of most recent links, which is what we recommend.

 

  1. Login to Google Webmaster tools >> http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
  2. Click on the site (Website X) that you want to find the links from.
  3. On the left hand side, there will be a list of options, select SEARCH TRAFFIC.
  4. Then select links to your site.
  5. You should see a column of links titled; Who Links the Most. Click on the More>> button at the bottom of this list to view the whole list of links to your site.

(This will bring you to a page displaying a list of links to your site and the      number of linked pages)

  1. Above the links are three tabs to choose from; Download this table, Download more sample links & Download Latest Links.
  2. Click on the Download Latest Links tab and you will be prompted to open a CSV file or a Google Docs file of your links that shows the links to your site arranged by the date that Google “found” them.
  3. Check this list manually by going through each and every link by actually visiting the link and checking if the site is still operational. Also check if the site has any “malware” issues. Also, if the site is from a different country and has no relevancy to your site, mark this as a bad link.

10. Once you have a list of links that are bad, irrelevant, broken or “spammy”. Submit that list to Google to Disavow from your site.

 

Upload your list of links to disavow using the disavow links tool page below.

  1. Go to the disavow links tool page.
  2. Select your website.
  3. Click Disavow links.
  4. Click Choose file. (uploading new files replace previously uploaded files)

 

This will show Google that you are trying to clean up your site and when Google indexes your site and other pages again it will see a much cleaner looking site. Your site will/should only be linked to by relevant sites with higher Page Ranks. The spammy links will be gone and this should help your site recover from being hit by the penguin updates.

 

But remember! Your sites content must be good, and any content posted by your site or linking to your site should be helpful and relevant! Visit us at https://www.seosolutions.us to learn more about how to keep your site relevant, properly linked and out of trouble! If your company was recently hit by a Google update; contact us, we will help you recover your rankings ASAP!

 

 

 

How Guest Blogging Works

Guest Blogging

–        In order to start, you need to first setup a blog on the website and populate it with relevant articles.

 

–        Then, you need to setup a contact page / form on the blog which will list article acceptance guidelines along with contact details to attract guest bloggers via search engines.

 

–        Apart from this, you can submit the blog to various Guest blogging networks so the bloggers are aware of it.

 

–        Once they accept the guidelines and ask you to add their post on your blog, you can ask them to add your article on their blog with a contextual link to your site.

 

Benefits of Guest Blogging –

 

The benefits of guest blogging are numerous and make it well worth the effort on your part. Guest blogging is encouraged by webmasters and bloggers too. Here are just a few important reasons that your website needs to have an active blog.

 

–        Acquiring extra blogs from external resources enables a consistent frequency of publishing when you lack the resources to do it yourself.

 

–        Guest blogging exposes your audience to high-quality topics from other industry experts.

 

–        It increases the freshness of the content on your site which will increase the number of times the blog is indexed by search engines, ultimately leading to a higher search position for your blog.

 

–        It exposes your blog to the guests author’s fans and followers. If they share the blog on social networks, it will give your blog a chance to acquire social signals as well.

 

–        It may also be  associated with established authors which will increase your own Author Rank.

 

–        It will help to get links from within the content i.e. contextual links. This in turn provides your site with an often unique link profile.

 

Guest blogging consistently is not going to be shortcuts to achieving higher rankings quickly — these things take some work. However, the investment of engaging with online consumers will give you an advantage that won’t disappear overnight. And, if you do it right, it could help you get ahead of your competitors in terms of SEO.

The New Google Places for Business Dashboard!

What has improved?

Google Places Dashboard Screenshot
1. New Design and Layout with a cleaner, easier to use interface. As with most of the
other products, Google has given the Dashboard a “Google+” ish look.
2. Better integration with other Google products. The Dashboard now includes a tab
to allow business owners to manage their Google+ Local pages making it easier for
owners to gain access to the social features of Google+, such as sharing posts,
photos and videos. If you do not have a Google account, you will not see the Google+
Local page tab on your Google Places Dashboard.
3. Faster Updating. Edits will now be approved and go live quicker. Google is
promising faster data updates in most cases.
4. Service Area Businesses can now hide their physical address, and specify whether
they serve customers at a storefront or if they visit their customers. We feel this is a
big improvement.
5. A slicker photo upload functionality. Photo uploads now use the improved Google+
photo upload interface and allow for drag and drop uploads.
6. The business description editor allows you to add rich text and URLs. This will
make sure that you can link to your website straight from your business
description. The 200 character limit in the description field has also been removed.
However, the more rich text you add, the more likely that it will require longer
moderation and thus the delay in getting your listing up.