SEO Review

Being a full-time online marketer means you have to keep a close watch on how Google is ranking pages on the web… one very serious concern is the whole issue of duplicate content. More importantly, how does having duplicate content on your site and on other people’s sites, affect your keyword rankings in Google and the other search engines?

Now, recently it seems that Google is much more open about just how it ranks content. I say “seems” because with Google there are years and years of mistrust when it comes to how they treat content and webmasters. Google’s whole “do as I say” attitude leaves a bitter taste in most webmasters’ mouths. So much so, that many have had more than enough of Google’s attitude and ignore what Google and their pundits say altogether.

This is probably very emotionally fulfilling, but is it the right route or attitude to take? Probably not!

Mainly because, regardless of whether you love or hate Google, there’s no denying they are King of online search and you must play by their rules or leave a lot of serious online revenue on the table. Now, for my major keyword content/pages even a loss of just a few places in the rankings can mean I lose hundreds of dollars in daily commissions, so anything affecting my rankings obviously gets my immediate attention.

So the whole tricky issue of duplicate content has caused me some concern and I have made an ongoing mental note to myself to find out everything I can about it. I am mainly worried about my content being ranked lower because the search engines think it is duplicate content and penalizes it.

My situation is compounded by the fact that I am heavily into article marketing – the same articles are featured on hundreds, some times thousands of sites across the web. Naturally, I am worried these articles will dilute or lower my rankings rather than accomplish their intended purpose of getting higher rankings.

I try to vary the anchor text/keyword link in the resource boxes of these articles. I don’t use the same keyword phrase over and over again, as I am nearly 99% positive Google has a “keyword use” quota – repeat the same keyword phrase too often and your highly linked content will be lowered around 50 or 60 places, basically taking it out of the search results. Been there, done that!

I even like submitting unique articles to certain popular sites so only that site has the article, thus eliminating the whole duplicate content issue. This also makes for a great SEO strategy, especially for beginning online marketers, your site will take some time to get to a PR6 or PR7, but you can place your content and links on high PR7 or PR8 authority sites immediately. This will bring in quality traffic and help your own site get established.

Another way I combat this issue is by using a 301 re-direct so that traffic and pagerank flows to the URL I want ranked. You can also use your Google Webmaster Tool account to show which version of your site you want ranked or featured: with or without the www.

The whole reason for doing any of this has to do with PageRank juice – you want to pass along this ranking juice to the appropriate page or content. This can raise your rankings, especially in Google.

Thankfully, there is the relatively new “canonical tag” you can use to tell the search engines this is the page/content you want featured or ranked. Just add this meta link tag to your content which you want ranked or featured, as in the example given below:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”place your preferred link here”>

Anyway, this whole duplicate issue has many faces and sides, so I like going directly to Google for my information. Experience has shown me that Google doesn’t always give you the full monty, but for the most part, you can follow what they say. Lately, over the last year or so, Google seems to have made a major policy change and are telling webmasters a lot more information on how they (Google) rank their index.

So if you’re concerned or interested in finding out more about duplicate content and what Google says about it try these helpful links. First one is a very informative video on the subject entitled “Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues” which is presented by Greg Grothaus who works for Google.

Another great link is this page from Google Webmasters Support Answers by Matt Cutts. It has a lot of helpful information, including a video on the Canonical Link Element.

In yet another post, Matt Cutts discusses the related issue of content scraping and advises webmasters not to worry about it. This is a slightly different matter, other webmasters and unmentionables may use software to scrape your site and place your content on their site. This has happened to me, countless times, including when my content has been reduced to scrambled nonsense. Cutts says not to worry about this matter as Google can usually tell the original source of the material. In fact, having links in this duplicate content may just help your rankings in Google.

“There are some people who really hate scrapers and try to crack down on them and try to get every single one deleted or kicked off their web host,” says Cutts. “I tend to be the sort of person who doesn’t really worry about it, because the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, it’s going to be you that comes up, not the scraper. If the guy is scraping and scrapes the content that has a link to you, he’s linking to you, so worst case, it won’t hurt, but in some weird cases, it might actually help a little bit.”

As a full time online marketer I am not so easily convinced, I mainly have pressing concerns about my unscrupulous competition using these scrapings and duplicate content to undermine one’s rankings in Google by triggering some keyword spam filter. Whether in fact this actually happens, only Google knows for sure, but it is just another indication, despite the very detailed and helpful information given above, duplicate content and the issues surrounding it, will still present serious concerns for online marketers and webmasters in the future.

About The Author

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: Internet Marketing Tools. If you liked the article above, why not try this Free 7 Day Marketing Course here: Marketing Tools Copyright 2009 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Any type of online business will strongly benefit from a few SEO techniques. However, everyone and their brother has advice on how to do it. All this ‘expert’ advice can make the simple task of optimizing your site incredibly confusing. Here are some straightforward answers to the most common SEO questions.

1. What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine is a tool many internet users use to find sites that are relevant to their needs. The three biggies when it comes to search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are however, hundreds of search engines available to internet users. Search engines work by sending out spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. If you have the information they’re looking for, in the places they are looking, they’ll find you and place you in their results when a person is looking for your information.

The task of understanding what search engines are looking for and putting it in the right places on your website and in your content, is the essence of search engine optimization. So now you might be asking…what do search engines look for and where do they look for it? The answer is keywords and links. Keywords in your html coding, keywords on your webpage content, keywords in your content, and the number of incoming links you have to your website.

2. How Important is SEO?

Let’s just put it this way. What’s better, a few visitors who stumble upon your website or hundreds of visitors that go to your website with the direct intention of learning more or making a purchase?

With more and more people searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire.

3. What are Text Links?

Links are just one of the tools you can use to improve your search engine optimization. The more quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. Text links are links that contain only text. Wikipedia is a great place to examine internal text links. The links are contained within a sentence and when a reader clicks on them they are taken to a different page on the same website. The kind of text links you’re looking for will be text links that will take readers from your article, ebook, or web copy to your website.

An excellent tool to generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article directories, blogs, and ezines and insert text links in the copy. Webmasters will link to the content and thus to your site. Additionally, when you allow free reprints of your copy and provided the links are maintained, you’re encouraging links to your website.

4. What are Link Farms and Link Exchanges?

Search engines don’t accept just any old link. The link has to be from a relevant and quality company. This means you don’t want to participate in link farming. If a search engine suspects your links to be lacking, they’ll actually penalize you. Link farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to improve your search engine ranking. A link farm is a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from another site, it had better be relevant and coming from a real web site.

5. What is Duplicate Content?

The definition of duplicate content is web pages that contain substantially the same content. Search engines will penalize you for this. How do you avoid duplicate content? Don’t publish the same article in several locations. There are many tools available online to help you re-write your content so that it is 30%, 40%, and even 50% different. However, the best way to avoid duplicate content is to simply write new content.

6. How do I Find the Right Keywords?

There are several steps to finding the most profitable keywords. The first step is to generally do a bit of brainstorming and come up with a list of keywords you think people will use to find your products. The next step is to research supply and demand for those particular keywords. Supply means how many other websites are using those same keywords and demand is how many people are looking for those particular keywords.

The key is to find keywords with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and useful keyword tools to help you find this information and to generate keyword ideas. Once you decide on a few keywords, it may be useful to do a bit of testing before you commit to them.

7. How do I Optimize My Web Pages?

Placing your keywords in the right location is a good start to optimizing your web pages. Search engines look to the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your website. They also look in the content on your page and primarily focus on the first paragraph.

Try to get a domain name with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your URL it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about.

Title Tag. Your title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages that acts as a link to your site. This is a crucial element of your webpage as it describes to your visitors what your page is about.

If you view your source code, your title tag will look something like this: <TITLE>Search Engine Optimization Tips</TITLE>

Keeping your title tags brief, descriptive, up to date, and keyword rich will help to improve the relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines, as well as giving your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your site.

Meta Tags have lost their importance to the search engines, however, it is still helpful to place your keywords in your meta tags. In your source code they look something like this: <META NAME=”description”

8. Do I Need to Submít My Site to The Search Engines?

The simple answer is – no. Search engine spiders are always out there doing their job and collecting information. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. However, if you want to be listed in a dírectory, like the DMOZ Open Directory Project, then you will need to submit to those.

9. What are Spiders?

Search engine spiders are also called web crawlers or bots. They’re basically automated programs which scan websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose of indexing or ranking them.

10. How does Content Help My SEO?

Content is one of the best tools to improve your search engine ranking. It is a great place to emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and boost traffic. The key to content is to make sure you’re offering quality content and you’re updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be provided in many forms including:

• Blogs
• Forums and chat rooms
• Articles
• Reviews
• Case studies
• Reports
• How to guides
• Tutorials
• e-books and much more.

About The Author

Want to know proven ways to dramatically improve membership sales? Want to take membership marketing to a whole new level of overflowing revenues? Build high-earning membership sites like a pro by going to www.membershipmillionaire.com .

According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while.

Twitter is simply a micro blogging service. What does that mean? It means that you write short updates (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” and send them out to your followers. And it is a marketer’s dream come true – it’s an easy way to stay in front of your target market and showcase your authority for free.

The myth around Twitter is that Twitter users (called tweeple or tweeps) tweet about useless information such as what kind of coffee they had with breakfast. Yes, some of that exists and it is actually important as you’ll see below, but once you understand the power of connecting on Twitter, you may become a Twitter convert, just like me.

So, if you’re on Twitter or considering starting, the question becomes, “what do I tweet about that will make this a useful tool for me?” Here are some categories you can consider for your tweets. There are others but these will get you started:

Industry Tips

This is a big one. You are on Twitter to showcase your expertise, so industry tips act as your credibility builders. Here’s how to do it: Create a list of high value tips (remember – no more than 140 characters long) and send one or two out every day. If you don’t want to have to manually do this yourself every day, consider a free tool called TweetLater.com to set up your tweets in advance. If your tweets are really good, others will send them out to their lists as well. This is called a “re-tweet,” and it’s a super way to quickly build your list of targeted followers.

Here is one of my recent tweets that had a great response:

Connect Others: Be willing to connect others even if it has nothing to do with your business. What goes around, comes around.

About Your Business

Use this category sparingly. In other words, if you use Twitter as a place to advertise your products and services too much, people will stop following you. This is not what Twitter is about. It is really about raising awareness of you and your business and impacting others. Use the 80/20 rule here. For every eight tweets about things other than your business, you can post two things about your business.

Here is an example:

Hey Columbus: I’ll be on Fox tomorrow at 7:45 where you can see me interviewed about my new book, Flourish!

Re-Tweets

When someone re-tweets you, they are giving you the highest compliment you can get on Twitter! It means that the person who re-tweeted you thinks that what you said is worth sharing with their own list of followers. This is like having someone ask you to a meeting so they can introduce you their entire list of contacts. When you get a re-tweet, send them a short tweet thanking them! Re-tweet others who are tweeting things that you agree with or want your followers to read.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, the example below probably won’t make a lot of sense because of all of the abbreviations, but they are necessary given that you only have 140 characters. Abbreviations are outside the scope of this article, but just know that it’s really not as scary as it looks!

RT @getgreatcopy: New blog post: The Sixth Habit of Highly Effective Communicators http://bit.ly/ 175XGS Gr8 stuff Jan, as usual.

Quotes

Tweeps seem to love quotes. If you are also a fan of quotes, compile a list and send one or two out every day. Again, you can use TweetLater.com to set these up in advance so you don’t have to manually enter them every day. Simply set up these tweets for a month and then watch your re-tweets happen!

Here’s an example of one that I recently posted:

“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.” Voltaire

Invitations

Invite tweeps to your free events. No-cost events like teleseminars are great to tweet about because people love to share high-value, low-cost information with their lists. When you provide something without a cost – a workshop, teleseminar or report, your tweets about it are likely to get re-tweeted, which provides you with greater exposure to your target market.

Here’s an example of one of my recent posts:

How 2 write your book in a weekend – free telesemimar w/ @donnakozik. http://bit.ly/127GtU

Personal

Include some personal things that are going on with your life. What you choose to include is entirely up to you; however, be sure to be relatable. You don’t have to share your deepest inner thoughts or too much detail about your family, but sharing something about what you did over the weekend makes you more relatatable. Remember, Twitter is about connecting with people. Other people on Twitter want to connect with people – not stale businesses. People often connect on a personal level over food, pets or hobbies. This is why these seemingly unimportant tweets are actually very fruitful. These are pretty safe personal topics. General things about kids are another hot topic under this category. Just be aware that anything you say is out there for the world to read.

Here’s an example I tweeted recently:

Interesting pop culture moment: Told a story to my sister, who lives in Vietnam & realized she doesn’t know who Sara Jessica Parker is!

As you can see, Twitter is simply an online forum for connecting with others in 140 characters or less. Big and small brands are using Twitter to connect and impact their target markets and locate joint ventures. Can you, too?

About The Author

Meredith Liepelt, President of Rich Life Marketing, offers a free report called “101 Ways to Attract Ideal Clients, Build Your List and Raise Your Profile,” which can be downloaded immediately at www.RichLifeMarketing.com .

Every one – from politicians, businesses, musicians, celebrities and many other groups of people – uses social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social networking outlets to spread their message, build their businesses and connect with others.

Do they know something we don’t?

Networking, whether online or offline, is a great use of time when done properly. As with anywhere you spend your time, knowing why you are doing it, how you will measure success and having a plan is the best approach.

With that said, I jumped in with both feet last year with the guidance of a social media expert, and I have found clients, joint venture partners, speaking engagements and other great connections through various social media outlets. I am a member of more social media outlets than I can count, but I currently focus on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. While I am not an expert in social media, here are five reasons to take some time to learn the benefits of social media.

1. There Is No Direct Cost

There is no direct cost unless you opt for an upgrade, if one is offered. I haven’t paid for an upgrade and have steadily increased my list to include over 1000 followers between just three social media outlets, and without much effort.

2. Build Your Business by Connecting With Peers

Are you interested in finding joint ventures, affiliates, guest experts or other peers you can bounce ideas off of? In the last few weeks alone, I have located one large joint venture partner and have had several other partnership opportunities cross my desk. Business owners just like you are using social media to connect with others who are interested in using your articles, hosting you as a guest expert on teleseminars, webinars and live events, and even creating projects together!

3. Build Your Business by Following Reporters You Are Targeting

Would an article written by a certain reporter make your year? Follow them on Twitter or Facebook and see what is of interest to them and what they are writing about. You don’t know what golden nugget you’ll find by following them online that may open the door at the right time. Follow them and invite them to follow you as well! Or with LinkedIn you can find out how many degrees you are from them. You may surprise yourself by being only one or two degrees away from your target!

4. Showcase Your Expertise, Build Your Platform and Attract New Clients

Social media is an interesting animal. While many people use it to grow their businesses, you must be mindful about outright promotions. Generally speaking, heavy marketing of your products and services on these sites is a big no-no. Here’s how I do it. I’ll post something like this: “Just got off the phone with social networking guru Nancy Marmolejo. Now I’m off to finish writing my sales page for the Business Breakthrough Series.” People who are intrigued will check you out and may end up deciding to follow you and … bingo! They have just entered your world!

5. Reach Large Audiences

The world is your oyster in social media. There are only a few businesses that are truly limited by geographic boundaries, especially if you are in the information marketing business. Being active on social networking sites eliminates geographic boundaries and allows you to reach a vast number of people from all over the world. If you have products and services that can be purchased by anyone in the world, being active in social media is an absolute must for you. I recently held a teleseminar with people from over 10 countries in attendance, all from the comfort of my home office! And my sweat pants!

So, is social media worth the time? It depends. Social media is absolutely the wave of the future, and you will need to know something about it at some point. However, whether you work it into your plan for 2009 depends on your goals. If you have a goal of increasing your reach to prospects either locally or internationally, you can do that quite effectively through social media. However, if you can cannot and will not commit to learning how to “tweet” on Twitter or communicate on Facebook or use your connections on LinkedIn, it will not be worth your time.

My advice to clients when they are just starting out is to select one social media outlet, whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and master it before jumping into every outlet possible. You obviously need to schedule time for connecting, so select the social networking outlets that will benefit you the most.

Now that I am experiencing the financial results of my online efforts, I understand why this is such a great use of my time and I’m hooked!

About The Author

Meredith Liepelt, President of Rich Life Marketing, offers a free report called “101 Ways to Attract Ideal Clients, Build Your List and Raise Your Profile,” which can be downloaded immediately at www.RichLifeMarketing.com .

Starting out it can all be so overwhelming. But it doesn’t need to be.

We have to get our products or services exactly right. Then we have to figure out how to explain them to others through our website.

We understand the reasons people should buy what we are selling. But can we successfully explain that to our website visitors in convincing language they relate to, instead of jargon and lingo related to our industry?

Finally, we have to develop an action plan to market online and within our budget, which is often limited when first starting our business.

And how do we develop that marketing plan? Where do we get the information necessary to formulate marketing techniques that will actually work for us? The number of sources out there is simply overwhelming!

This is when getting feedback from a professional outside our own industry can be valuable. You can turn to an affordable Internet Marketing Consultant or an affordable SEO Consultant who understands and specializes in small businesses and new business start-ups.

What about Getting Internet Traffic to Your Site?

Some start by using pay-per-click marketing, like Google AdWords. It’s GREAT for sales lead generation.

The trouble is that AdWords can get expensive quickly. And it takes a LOT of time to set up and manage over time.

Starting out it may make sense to use AdWords. Plus, it can be a great way to test your keyword search phrases to find out which ones convert best. You can use AdWords for this purpose before beginning search engine optimization (SEO).

But ultimately…sooner or later…you’ll need to optimize for the search engines (SEO).

About The Author

Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a budget. He’s a Sales Lead Generation expert and a Affordable SEO specialist offering affordable marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). Receive your Free Introductory Consultation, just visit Strategic Web Marketing today!